22 HEREDITY AND INHERITANCE 



It was strongly arched, and some of the hairs in the centre grew 

 upwards. Three of his sons have the same peculiarity ; one of 

 his grandsons has it also ; so has his great-granddaughter, and, 

 if we are to believe the artists, this gentleman's grandfather 

 and great-grandfather had the same peculiarity " (R. W. 

 Felkin). 



" There was a family in France, of whom the leading repre- 

 sentative could when a youth pitch several books from his head 

 by the movement of the scalp alone. His father, uncle, grand- 

 father, and his three children possessed the same power to the 

 same unusual degree. This family became divided eight genera- 

 tions ago into two branches, so that the head of the above- 

 named branch was cousin in the seventh degree to the head of 

 the other branch. This distant cousin resided in another part 

 of France, and on being asked whether he possessed the same 

 faculty, immediately exhibited his power." 



A woman with blonde hair, a birth-mark under the left eye, 

 and a lisp, married a man with dark hair and normal utterance. 

 There were nineteen children, none of whom showed any of the 

 mother's characters. Nor among the numerous grandchildren 

 was there any trace. In the third generation, however, there 

 was a girl with blonde hair, a mark below the left eye, and a lisp. 



Girou tells of a man who had the peculiar habit of always 

 sleeping on his back with his right leg crossed over his left. His 

 daughter showed the same habit almost from infancy, and per- 

 sisted in it in spite of efforts made to make her sleep in an ortho- 

 dox position. Darwin gives an even better case where a very 

 peculiar gesture reappeared ; and there seems no doubt that 

 trivial peculiarities, e.g. playing with a lock of hair and idio- 

 syncrasies of handwriting, may reappear even in cases where 

 imitation was out of the question (Biicrmer, 1882, p. 42). 



And thus the list may be followed till we end with evidence 

 of the inheritance of minutiae often of a most trivial character. 

 Thus : " Schook relates the case of a family nearly all the mem- 



