98 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



boar, and this sow breeding afterwards with an Essex boar, had 

 chestnut pigs. 



Among- dogs the same result is notoriously frequent, thougli 

 it must be confessed there are usually more sources of fallacy 

 with these creatures. 



These remarkable results may be due to mental influence 

 alone, though it would be difficult to disprove the theory that 

 the system of the mother is impregnated or inoculated by 

 elements absorbed from the offspring she bears. We know 

 nothing, it is true, of any function but secretion resident in the 

 placental surface of the womb, but as absorption and secretion 

 both take place from some other glandular surface, and as the 

 organic germs of infectious diseases arc taken up from the sur- 

 face of the lungs, we cannot consider an animal membrane as 

 an insuperable obstacle to the absorption of infinitesimal par- 

 ticles of living animal (germinal) matter. A third explanation 

 may be sought in the sympathy between the functions of the 

 ovary where the germs of the next succeeding progeny are then 

 being developed, and the special processes going on in the womb 

 and its contents. A striking example of this sympathy we have 

 in the ruptured ovarian vesicles which increase and remain till 

 after parturition in cases of pregnancy, but rapidly disappear if 

 conception does not take place. If pregnancy influences the 

 empty vesicle why not the growing one, and with this fact 

 before us, it is absurd to suppose that the peculiar conditions of 

 one pregnancy will affect the ova then being developed. 



But whether this theory or that is the correct one, it will not 

 change the fact that the earlier offspring often stamps its char- 

 acter on the next succeeding. This is practically important to 

 us, and knowing it we can guard against its possible evil effects. 



8//i. Atavism. — Reversion. — Breeding- back. — The tendency 

 to this is seen in all families, human and brute. The child often 

 resembles grandparents or great grandparents, uncle or aunt, 

 in place of its own parents. Polled-Angus, Galloway and Suf- 

 folk cattle which are hornless, occasionally produce a horned 

 calf. The same is frequently seen among the hornless South- 

 down sheep. Even the purest bred Leicesters will sometimes 

 show patches of gray on the face, as if they had been crossed 

 with Southdown. Black noses are far from unknown among 

 the best bred Durhams. 



