GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF BREEDING. 31 



liarity. Another very remarkable case of this 

 nature that came under my own observation 

 was that of a family residing in Iowa, where 

 the mother and three daughters were entirely 

 destitute of hair, but the sons all had quite as 

 much as the average of men. We have also 

 several well-authenticated cases of the trans- 

 mission, for a few generations, of an abnormal 

 number of fingers or toes, as in the case of the 

 Colburn family, where each of the members 

 had a supernumerary toe and finger, which 

 anomaly was transmitted, although irregularly, 

 for four generations before it entirely disap- 

 peared. The writer is personally cognizant of 

 a case in -which the second and third toe of 

 each foot were united, and which anomaly has 

 been transmitted for three generations to one 

 only out of an average of eight descendants in 

 each family. But, as before remarked, when 

 the conditions of life remain unchanged these 

 anomalies almost invariably disappear, and the 

 descendants ultimately resume the typical 

 character of the race. 



From the fact that these accidental varia- 

 tions have shown themselves to be, in a limited 

 degree, transmissible by heredity, we may infer 

 that if selections were made with a view to 

 their perpetuation they might ultimately be- 

 come fixed characteristics. Indeed, there is a 

 considerable weight of evidence tending to show 



