HEREDITARY TRAITS. 221 



mitted hereditarily. So also is skill in special exercises. 

 Thus in the north country there are families of famous 

 wrestlers. Among professional oarsmen, again, we may 

 note such cases as the Clasper family in the north, the 

 Mackinneys in the south ; while among amateur oarsmen 

 we have the case of the Playford family, to which the 

 present amateur champion sculler belongs. In cricket, the 

 Walker family and the Grace family may be cited among 

 amateurs, the Humphreys among professional players. Grace 

 in dancing was transmitted for three generations in the Vestris 

 family. It must, however, be noted that in some of these 

 cases we may fairly consider that example and teaching have 

 had much to do with the result. Take rowing for instance. 

 A good oarsman will impart his style to a whole crew if 

 he rows stroke for them ; and even if he only trains them (as 

 Morrison, for instance, trained the Cambridge crew a few years 

 ago), he will make good oarsmen of men suitably framed 

 and possessing ordinary aptitude for rowing. I remember 

 well how a famous stroke-oar at Cambridge (John Hall, of 

 Magdalen,) imparted to one at least of the University crew 

 (a fellow-collegian of his, and therefore rowing with him 

 constantly also in his College boat) so exact an imitation of 

 his style that one rather dusky evening, when the latter was 

 1 stroking ' a scratch four past a throng of University men, a 

 dispute arose as to which of the two was really stroke of 

 the four. Anyone who knows how characteristic commonly 

 is the rowing of any first-class stroke, and still more anyone 

 who chances to know how peculiar was the style of the 

 University * stroke-oar ' referred to, will understand how 

 closely his style must have been adopted, when experienced 

 oarsmen, not many yards from the passing four, were unable 

 to decide at once which of the two men were rowing, even 

 though the evening was dusky enough to prevent the features 

 of the stroke (whose face was not fully in view at the mo- 

 ment) from being discerned. Seeing that a first-rate oarsman 

 can thus communicate his style so perfectly to another, it 

 cannot be regarded as demonstrably a case of hereditary 



