112 ACQUIRED CHARACTERS sec. 



In still higher degree is this true, as I have shown, for our 

 domestic dogs. " The apparently innumerable varieties in the 

 markings of these animals — spots, dots, and streaks — are by no 

 means fortuitous, irregular, but can be traced back to a per- 

 fectly definite fundamental plan." ^ 



Tliis fundamental plan of marking in the domestic dog and 

 the domestic cat of course approximates to the original mark- 

 ing, from which it is derived by the strengtliening and coal- 

 escence of parts, but as a whole it is something new. There 

 is evident in it (at least in the dog) a new definite direction 

 of evolution, which can only be due to causes connected witli 

 the domesticated condition. It is true that human selection 

 in the breeding of dogs must be directed to a certain 

 symmetry, even in markings. Dogs which have less of this 

 symmetry are less propagated, but in valuable races of dogs, 

 e.g. pointers, even this degree of selection is out of the ques- 

 tion ; and as the regularity of which I now speak, and which 

 I have demonstrated by figures in Humholdt, has hitlierto 

 been noticed by no one, and was unknown, therefore it could 

 not be an object to the breeder. I may remark in addition 

 that according to my observation the apparently irregular 

 spots in our cattle can be referred to a perfectly definite law. 

 For the dog and the cat, however, the remarkable fact comes 

 to notice, that the new plan in the markings has a certain 

 agreement in both, in both arose independently, through modi- 

 fication of the same parts of the original transverse striping 

 common to both. This striping can still be recognised as a 

 token of the original blood relationship between the dog and 

 the cat. 



I have traced in detail this modification of the marking in 

 its beginnings in the street dogs of Constantinople, and hav^e 

 already published some remarks on it in the journals already 

 named. These dogs are evidently the immediate descendants 



^ Cf. Iluinboldt, and ZoologischerAnzeiger, loc. cit. 



