Ixiv GENERAL INTRODUCTION. 



tlie male or the female ; and further, characters which 

 have during recent times, irrespective of sex, played an 

 important part in enabling the species or variety to hold 

 its own in the struggle for existence will also be strongly 

 inherited. Moreover peculiarities of the nature of sports 

 or the result of inbreeding will also, I think, be readily 

 transmitted, quite irrespective of the sex of the indi- 

 vidual possessing them. 



It would be comparatively easy to cite instances which 

 seem to prove that the offspring owed their colour, form, 

 and distinctive attitudes and movements to the male ; but 

 it would be equally easy to mention cases which, seem to 

 prove that the colour and form had been derived from 

 the female, while the disposition, temper, and habits had 

 been inherited from the male. Doubtless, in some cases, 

 the male is more prepotent than the female ; but in many 

 cases the greater prepotency is the result of the male 

 being of a purer breed than the female, i. e. of his being- 

 inbred, or because some of the characters are latent in 

 the female. Darwin refers to the view already dealt with, 

 that it is difficult to eradicate a blue tint when it once 

 appears in pigeons, and also to the belief that the 

 pouter is more prepotent than the fantail. But though 

 blue is usually prepotent over white in pigeons, I have 

 twice, as already mentioned, bred pure white fantails from 

 almost blue birds, and the offspring of a white fantail 

 cock and a blue pouter hen, though having the form and 

 habits of the pouter, is almost white. In the last case 

 the male was most powerful in the matter of colour, but 

 counted for little in the form. It seems to be admitted 

 that the male ass is more prepotent than the female when 

 bred with the horse, — that a mule, in fact, is more like 

 an ass than is a hinny, and that is certainly my ex- 

 perience ; but, on the other hand, the female zebra, when 

 bred with the horse, may prove as prepotent as the male, 

 if the intensity of the stripes and the form of the limbs 

 and hoofs are taken as the standard. The Dalmatian 

 dog proved more prepotent than the sable collie, but this 

 might have been expected from the male being, by the 



