THEORY OF EXTRAORDINARY BIRTHS. 2 57 



Examples of such births are sufficiently common 

 arising from causes not at all understood. Some of 

 them are to be considered as malformations ; but it 

 is not impossible that even such features should oc- 

 casionally be of enough importance to be the origin 

 of a new species. But many such births cannot be 

 considered as malformations. Two or three of the 

 best instances it may be well to give here. 



The Ancon sheep is a breed with dwarfed legs, 

 and it made its appearance thus suddenly : A Massa- 

 chusetts farmer found a single ram in his flock in 

 1791 which possessed dwarfed legs. Thinking that 

 such a peculiarity might be valuable in preventing 

 the sheep from jumping fences, he preserved this 

 ram to breed from. The result was that the Ancon 

 sheep thus arising soon supplanted the original 

 variety. It was found that when the Ancon ram 

 was crossed with a ewe of any other variety, the off- 

 spring was not an intermediate variety but of the pure 

 Ancon type, a fact which will be seen at once to be 

 of extreme importance, since it shows that crossing 

 will not always eliminate variations. Dr. Godron, 

 of Nancy, upon sowing some Datura tatula, whose 

 fruit is covered with spines, discovered among the 

 plants raised an individual whose seed capsule was 

 smooth. The seeds of this plant were- preserved 

 and again sown, and all of the plants coming from 

 them showed the same peculiarity. The seeds of 

 the next generation were again sowed with like re- 

 sult ; and so on, so long as the experiment con- 

 tinued. It was also found that when the smooth 

 variety was crossed with the original form hybrids 



