VIII.] SUPPOSED TRANSMISSION OF MUTILATIONS. 439 



the Isle of Man is mentioned in the first edition of 'The Origin 

 of Species ' ; of course I am referring to Darwin's work, a'nd 

 not to the above-mentioned book of the same name, by Prof. 

 Eimer. As to the first origin of the tailless Manx breed we 

 know no more than about the origin of that remarkable race of 

 cats with supernumerary toes, w^hich E. B. Poulton has recently 

 described from Oxford, and has traced through several genera- 

 tions ^ These are innate monstrosities which have arisen 

 from unknown changes in the germ. Similar monstrosities 

 have been known for a long time, and no one has ever 

 doubted that they can be transmitted. 



It would be equally justifiable to derive the cats with extra 

 toes from an ancestor of v^^hich the toes had been trodden upon, 

 as to derive the tailless cats of the Isle of Man from an ancestor 

 of which the tail had been cut off" by a cart passing over it, and 

 thus to regard the existence of the race as a proof of the trans- 

 mission of mutilations. 



But even if it were certain that the tail of the mother cat had 

 been mutilated, such a fact would not necessarily prove that 

 the rudimentary tails of the offspring were due to transmission 

 from the mother : they might have been transmitted from the 

 unknown father. This is probably not the case with Dr. 

 Zacharias' cat, for tailless kittens occurred in several families 

 produced by the same mother ; but in other cases the possi- 

 bility of the possession of innate taillessness by the father must 



^ [See ' Nature,' vol. xxix. p. 20, and vol. xxxv. p. 38. In the latter 

 article nine generations are recorded, and in both articles figures of the 

 normal and abnormal feet are given. Additional generations and many 

 more families have been since observed, and an account of these 

 observations will shortly be published in the same paper. The breed 

 originally came from Bristol. In the observations recorded, the ab- 

 normality of the offspring is an indication of the hereditary strength of 

 the female parents, v^hile the degree of normality is a similar test of 

 heredity through the male parents ; for the female parents were always 

 abnormal, the male parents always normal. The most abnormal kitten 

 observed possessed seven toes on each forefoot, seven toes on the right 

 hind foot (three more than the normal number), and six on the left hind 

 foot. Kittens with seven toes on the forefeet and six on the hind were 

 comparatively common, and all intermediate conditions between this and 

 the normal were of frequent occurrence. Cats with extra toes are, I 

 think, not uncommon in most countries, and the fact that the peculiarity 

 is transmitted is also well known. The object of the investigation 

 alluded to was to observe the transmission systematically through many 

 generations. — E. B. P.] 



