GENERAL INTRODUCTION. Isix 



striking white bald face. It is said that mares, after 

 having foals by Blair Athol, produced Blair Athol like 

 foals to other sires utterly unlike Blair Athol. In the 

 same way a fox terrier, after having pups to a Dalmatian 

 had, Millais tells us, spotted pups to a dog of her own 

 breed. From these two cases it "will be evident that 

 breeders and fanciers believe in direct '^infection." I 

 think this kind of infection is extremely unlikely, if not 

 impossible. My sable collie's pups to a Dalmatian have 

 only four or five patches of coloui', such as occur in 

 foxhounds and pointers. According to the breeder's 

 view of telegony, her next pups to a collie like herself 

 should, if she has been ''' infected," be spotted like a 

 Dalmatian. This is evidently an untenable position. 

 Again, all my hybrids profoundly differ in the number 

 and plan of their stripes from their Burchell zebra sire ; 

 yet, according to the popular view, the subsequent foals 

 of their respective infected (?) dams should more or less 

 resemble a Burchell zebra. This is an equally untenable 

 position. The collie, if " infected," can only be expected to 

 produce in future pups like a foxhound or pointer ; the 

 mares, if " infected," can only in future be expected to 

 produce foals more or less like zebra-hybrids. My flea- 

 bitten New Forest pony, after having a mule foal, has 

 had two foals to a grey Arab with a blaze. Next year 

 she is expected to have a foal to a bay hackney pony. 

 Should this foal have a '' blaze," before ascribing it to 

 telegony it will be necessary to prove a blaze had not 

 occurred for many generations in one or other of the new 

 foal's ancestors, or was not a " sport." In the case of 

 the fox terrier pup, before ascribing the spots to the 

 previous Dalmatian sire it would be necessary to prove 

 that similar spots had not occurred in some of the pup's 

 ancestors. 



Believers in telegony, with tiresome unanimity, ever 

 revert to Lord Morton's mare. The more I consider Lord 

 Moi'ton's case the less satisfied I am that the mare so 

 often referred to was infected by the quagga. A glance 

 at Figs. 14 and 15 (pp. QQ and 67) shows that the pure- 



