

RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF PARENTS. 253 



ify, and in some cases almost seem to set aside the law. 



C/ / ' 



I do not mean it to be inferred that either parent 

 gives either set of organs uninfluenced by the other 

 parent, but merely that the leading characteristics and 

 qualities of both sets of organs are due to the male on 

 the one side and the female on the other, the opposite 

 parent modifying them only." ' 



It must be obvious, from the facts already present- 

 ed, that the half-and-half theory of generation cannot 

 be true.* 



The characteristics of one parent may sometimes 

 be transposed, in some unaccountable manner, through 

 the supplementary influence of the other parent, as in 

 the following remarkable case reported to me by Dr. 

 H. B. Shank, of Lansing, Michigan: A white cat 

 with a small black patch, consisting of a few hairs, on 

 her forehead, had kittens by a tomcat that was en- 

 tirely black. The kittens were all black, with the 

 exception of a small patch on the forehead, which 

 was white. The white patch on the kittens occupied 

 the same position, and it was also of the same size, as 

 the black patch on the forehead of the mother. 



The relative influence of parents upon their off- 

 spring evidently depends upon conditions that cannot 

 in all cases be determined. When the characteristics 

 of one parent have been fixed by the inheritance of 

 the same peculiarities for many generations, it will 

 undoubtedly prove to be prepotent in the transmission 



1 Journal of the Highland Agricultural Society, 1857-'59, p. 25. 



8 Darwin's " Animals and Plants under Domestication," vol. ii., pp. 

 88, 432 ; " Heredity," by Ribot, p. 166 ; Journal of the Highland Agri- 

 cultural Society, 1857-'59, p. 21. 



