TELEGONY AND REVHilKSION. 59 



views held by Darwin, Spencer, Weismanii, Romanes, and 

 others on the '' infection " theory. 



Lord Morton's object apparently was not to ascertain 

 whether there was such a thing as " infection of the germ," 

 but simply to see whether it was possible to domesticate 

 the quagga, now, alas ! extinct. In the letter addressed 

 to the President (Dr. Wollaston) of the Royal Society on 

 August 12th, 1820, Lord Morton says : " I obtained a 

 male, but being disappointed of a female [quagga] I tried 

 to breed from the male quagga and a young chestnut mare 

 of seven-eighths Arabian blood, and which had never been 

 bred from. The result was the production of a female 

 hybrid, now five years old, and bearing both in her form 

 and in her colour very decided indications of her mixed 

 origin. I subsequently parted with the seven-eighths 

 Arabian mare to Sir Gore Ouseley, who has bred from her 

 by a very fine black Arabian horse, ... a two-year-old 

 filly and a year-old colt, which in their colour and in the 

 hair of their manes have a striking resemblance to the 

 quagga.""^ It is further mentioned in the now famous 

 letter that the colt and filly were in some respects more 

 striped than either the quagga or the quagga hybrid, 

 and it is added that while the mane of the filly was 

 stiff, short, and erect, as in the quagga, that of the colt 

 arched upwards, as in the hybrid. 



Notwithstanding these quagga or hybrid-like characters, 

 few biologists at the present moment admit that Lord 

 Morton's chestnut mare was "infected" by the quagga. 

 Darwin, however, in 1875 seems to have believed the 

 chestnut mare had been " infected." He says, " These 

 colts [the colt and filly bred by Sir Gore Ouseley] were 

 partially dun-coloured, and were striped on the legs more 

 plainly than the real hybrid or even than the quagga. One 

 of the two colts had its neck and some other parts of its 

 body plainly marked with stripes. Stripes on the body, 

 not to mention those on the legs, are extremely rare — I 

 speak after having long attended to the subject — with 

 * 'Phil. Trans.,' 1S21, p. 21. For complete letter see Appendix. 



