OR, A TREATISE ON PILE. 163 



two or three days only. It was in fine order, ran with its mother (who was doing nothing) 

 in good pasture. "When taken sick, had every medical attention paid it; but it was found 

 impossible to effect a passage through it, and, upon a post mortem examination, all the food 

 and medicine w r as found in the stomach, none having ever passed into the intestines." 



We recollect how, at the times, these births respectively were dwelt upon as proving the 

 Mule 1o be prolific. But we ask the intelligent reader whether they do not fall far short of 

 the mark; they exhibit no ground to believe that such progeny can ever be the foundation 

 of a permanent, self-supporting race, which (as we have seen) is one of the conditions of 

 the rule above quoted. 



We will next refer to some cases of intercourse, or supposed intercourse, between the 

 Goat and the Sheep, premising that, although the evidence in these cases is somewhat 

 contradictory, yet that its weight will lead us to a similar result. 



Smith (in Hist, of Man, p. 117,) says, that "Goats and Sheep intermix, producing per- 

 manently fertile hybrids."* But Bellchambers (in a note to Goldsmith's Nat. Hist, of 

 Man, &c., p. 245,) qualifies the above broad assertion as follows : " The Sheep and the 

 Goat propagate the buck Goat is found to produce, with the ewe, an animal which, in 

 two or three generations, returns to the Sheep, and seems to retain no mark of its ancient 

 progenitor." Where is the permanence ? 



How the breeding goes on during these " two or three generations" we are not informed; 

 but we take it for granted lhat the progeny is bred towards the Sheep. Surely no one 

 would pretend, from this evidence, to aver that such hybrids were permanently fertile, 

 much less that they constitute a self-supporting race ! 



Now let us see what the author of Illustrations of Natural History, (p. 151,) with all 

 these remarks before him, has to say upon the subject. "Although the Goat is a distinct 

 species, and possibly further removed from the Sheep than the Horse is from the Ass, yet 

 the buck will propagate with the ewe. But, although these intercourses happen very fre- 

 quently, and are sometimes prolific, yet no intermediate species has ever been formed 

 between them. * * * No new or middle race has arisen therefrom." 



It seems, then, that all that we know with certainty is, that the Goat and the Sheep, in 

 their domestic state, frequently have intercourse, and not that they have "free intercourse," 

 as exists between members of the same species that this intercourse is "sometimes" (not 

 uniformly) prolific and that here propagation, per se, ends; if you desire to continue the 

 progeny, you must call in the aid of an animal belonging to the original parents. 



And even this breeding is somewhat doubtful, for one of our correspondents, namely, 

 Mr. Samuel Patterson, of Patterson's Mills, Washington county, Pennsylvania, in a letter 

 to us upon this subject, says: " I have made inquiry, but have heard of no case of inter- 

 course between the Sheep and the Goat being prolific. I have tried the experiment to 

 some extent, myself, with the Goat and the ewe, but without production. I have never 

 seen the ram having intercourse with the she Goat, although I have had them running 

 together at tupping time. Mr. Plummer, a neighbor of mine, has made the experi- 



* There is no permanently fertile Jiylrids. 

 41 



