468 LIFE : OUTLINES OF GENERAL BIOLOGY 



lowed by a family. But this is very apt to involve the post hoc, non 

 propter hoc fallacy. The breeder makes a scapegoat of the chance 

 sire, whose influence is supposed to "infect the germ" fertilised by 

 a subsequent and reputable father. The only way to certainty is by 

 experiment. 



The famous case of Lord Morton's mare (1821), which Darwin 

 discussed, concerned a nearly pure-bred Arabian chestnut mare 

 which bore a hybrid to a quagga, and afterwards produced two colts 

 by a black Arabian horse. These colts were partially dun-coloured, 

 and showed strijx^s on legs and some other parts. The mane was 

 like a quagga's, being short, stiff, and upright. This seems at first 

 sight very satisfactory, but the drawing of the most quagga-hke of 

 the two colts is said to show only indistinct stripes, such as some- 

 times occur as reversions on pure-bred foals. A stiff mane may also 

 occur as a variation among horses. It is possible that the quagga 

 crossing had nothing to do with the peculiarities of the subsequent 

 pure-bred foals. Prof. Cossar Ewart, with patient and careful 

 experiments, crossing pony and zebra, gave every opportunity, so 

 to speak, for telegonj' to assert itself, yet with no clear evidence of 

 its reality. 



So it has been with other experiments; the evidence has never 

 been quite conclusive. Negative cases do not, of course, prove that 

 telegony never occurs; hundreds of experiments might be necessary 

 before clear-cut positive evidence was forthcoming. 



Does telegony occur in man? There are plenty of surmises, but 

 there is no certainty. We hear of a white woman who lived for a 

 while with a negro and afterwards with a white man. The children 

 by the second father had some negroid peculiarities! But man's 

 standard of accuracy — not to speak of veracity — is not high in 

 regard to these matters. 



Prof. Karl Pearson has approached the problem from the statistical 

 side. If a female can be influenced in a telegonic way by a previous 

 mate, should there not be in permanent unions of a pair an increasing 

 influence from the father's side? But there seems to be, as regards 

 stature, no such evidence of any increase in the influence of the 

 father on a scries of children. 



It is much to be desired that those who live near the overlapping 

 of distinct races should look out for suggestions of telegony in cases 

 where the same mother has offspring first to a husband of one race, 

 and afterwards to a husband of another race. F'aithfulness to the 

 second husband would obviously have to be presupposed if the 

 case was to have any scientific value. An easier sc^t of observations 

 might be made at home by comparing the families of the same 

 mother by two successive husbands. Does the first husband continue 

 to count? 



Although we are not sure that telegony is a fact, various theories 



