Ghap. III. CROSSED SPECIES FERTILE. 87 



cross-bred animals were perfectly fertile with both parent- 

 stocks. Mr. Blyth informs me that in India hybrids, with 

 various proportions of either blood, are quite fertile j and this 

 can hardly fail to be known, for in some districts ^° the two 

 species are allowed to breed freely together. Most of the 

 cattle which were first introduced into Tasmania were 

 humped, so that at one time thousands of crossed animals 

 existed there ; and Mr. B. O'Neile Wilson, M.A., writes to 

 me from Tasmania that he has never heard of any sterility 

 having been observed. He himself formerly possessed a 

 herd of such crossed cattle, and all were perfectly fertile ; so 

 much so, that he cannot remember even a single cow failing 

 to calve. These several facts afford an important confirma- 

 tion of the Pallasian doctrine that the descendants of species 

 which when first domesticated would if crossed have been 

 in all probability in some degree sterile, become perfectly 

 fertile after a long course of domestication. In a future 

 chapter we shall see that this doctrine throws some light on 

 the difficult subject of Hybridism. 



I have alluded to the cattle in Chillingham Park, which, 

 according to Eiitimeyer, have been very little changed from 

 the Bos p-imigenius type. This park is so ancient that it is 

 referred to in a recoid of the year 1220. The cattle in their 

 instincts and habits are truly wild. They are white,, with 

 the inside of the ears reddish-brown, eyes rimmed with black, 

 muzzles brown, hoofs black, and horns white tij)ped with 

 black. Within a period of thirty-three years about a dozen 

 calves were born with " brown and blue spots upon the 

 cheeks or necks ; but these, together with any defective 

 animals, were always destroyed." According to Bewick, 

 about the year 1770 some calves appeared with black ears; 

 but these were also destroyed by the keeper, and black ears 

 have not since reappeared. The wild white cattle in the 

 Duke of Hamilton's park, where I have heard of the birth 

 of a Idack calf, are said by Loi'd Tankerville to be inferior to 

 those at Chillingham. The cattle kept until the year 1780 

 by the Duke of Queensberry, but now extinct, had their ears, 

 muzzle, and orbits of the eyes black. Those which have 

 50 VValther, 'Das Eindvieh,' 1817, s. 30. 



