Tin-: AI,TI:I;N \rm.\ 01 01 M i; in ;i;> 



nutriment. But it is a living nutriment, in Home respect* 



comparable to that which uould !> supplied to B 



kept alive by transfusion, .-in, I ii> moL-ml. 



impregnated embryo c,-!l : ,!l tin- special <!,., .,,. or - 



ganism to which il belonged. 



Tin- tendency of the germ to reproduce the characters of 

 its immediate parents, combined, in the case of s. 

 lion, with the tendency to reproduce the characters 01 

 male, is the source of th<> singular phenomena of I, 

 transmission. No structural modification is so 

 functional peculiarity is so insignificant in eith- i|,.,t 



it may not make its appearance in the oflsprii.^. 

 transmission of parental peculiarities depends grr.i 

 the manner in which they have been acquired. >u-h as have 

 arisen naturally, and have been hereditary through many an- 

 tecedent generations, tend to appear in the pr< genv "\\ ith 

 great force; while artificial modifications such, for example, 

 as result from mutilation are rarely, il ever, transmitted. 

 Circumcision through innumerable ancestral general* Dfl does 

 not appear to have reduced that rite to a mere formality, as 

 it should have done if the abbreviated prepuce had 

 hereditary in the descendants of Abraham ; while 

 lambs are born with long tails, notwithstanding the long-con- 

 tinued practice of cutting those of every generation short. 

 And it remains to be seen whether the supposed hereditary 

 transmission of the habit of retrieving among dogs is really 

 what it seems at first sight to be ; on the other side, Brown- 

 Se"quard's case of the transmission of art iticially-induccd epi- 

 lepsy in Guinea-pigs is undoubtedly very \\eigl 



Although the germ always tends to reproduce, directly or 

 indirectly, the organism from which it is derived, il 

 of its development differs somewhat from the parent. I "sually 

 the amount of variation is insignificant ; but it may be con- 

 siderable, as in the so-called "sports ; " and such variai 

 whether useful or useless, may be transmitted v\ith great te- 

 nacity to the offspring of the subjects of them. 



In many plants and animals which multiph -exiuilly 



and sexually there is no definite relation lu-t\\ 

 mogenetic and the gamogenetio phenomena. The organ 

 may multiply asexually before, or after, or c< n. um inly \\ith. 

 the occurrence of sexual generation. 



But in a great many of the lower organisms, both animal 

 and vegetable, the organism (A) which results from the im- 

 pregnated germ produces offspring only agamogenetically. 



