EXCLUSIVE INHERITANCE 113 



prepotent, the mother sometimes seems absolutely prepotent, 

 but the characters in regard to which the prepotency is exhibited 

 usually vary from case to case. Goethe may have been quite 

 accurate in saying : 



Vom Vater hab' ich die Statur, 

 Des Lebens ernstes Fiihren; 

 Vom Miitterchen die Frohnatur 

 Und Lust zu fabuliren. 



But this cannot be generalised as a law of inheritance ! 



There seems to be a widespread belief among breeders that 

 external form depends upon the father, while temperament and 

 visceral organs depend upon the mother. But this does not 

 stand examination. Nor can we rely with security on the 

 opinion of many horse-breeders e.g. Stephens that the sire 

 almost always counts for most all round ; for it has to be re- 

 membered that a sire is mated with very few dams as good as 

 himself. Buffon hazarded the conclusion that the mule resembles 

 the father ass more than the mother mare, and the hinny re- 

 sembles the father horse more than the mother ass ; but he dealt 

 only with superficialities. Crossings between humped zebu cattle 

 and those without humps show that the hump is inherited in some 

 degree, whether it was possessed by the ox or the cow ; and the 

 same is true in regard to camels with one or two humps, and in 

 regard to crossings of wild boar and sow or vice versa. 



There is no doubt that what looks like well-marked " unilateral 

 inheritance " is not infrequent, where the son is, as they say, 

 the very image of his father, or the daughter the reflection of 

 her mother ; or, even more frequently, where the inheritance is, 

 as they say, " crossed," the son taking after the mother, and 

 the daughter after the father. But to generalise the latter into 

 a formula, as some dog-breeders have done, " Chien de chienne, 

 et chienne de chien," is quite illegitimate. The result will depend 

 on which of the parents has the mysterious quality of " prepo- 



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