PEDIGREES OF STOCK. 181 



pretty conclusive that parents live in their offspring. Parents 

 transmit their individual peculiarities of color, form, longevity, 

 idiosyncracy, &c., to their offspring, as a general rule, both 

 parents being always represented, but which is the predominat- 

 ing influence is not ascertainable, sometimes the male prepon- 

 derating in one direction and the female influence in another, yet 

 this direction being by no means constant, and often reversed, 

 and the direction being undoubtedly controlled by the age, 

 strength and other qualities of the sire or dam. Bakewell, the 

 famous English breeder, would let or sell his rams, but held his 

 ewes sacred, neither selling nor letting them, considering the 

 female influence preponderated to the best advantage. Many 

 farmers consider that the property of abundant secretion of milk 

 is more certain to be transmitted from a bull than from a cow, 

 whilst the majority are careless as to the character of the bull, 

 provided the cow is of a good milking family. In the scale of 

 humanity, all men of genius are said to have had remarkable 

 mothers, yet a history of " hereditary genius " shows that as 

 many men have been indebted for their intellectual qualities to 

 the male as to the female side of the house. As no positive 

 rule can be laid down, the best to follow is to have both sire 

 and dam as near perfect as possible, and then we can say of the 

 progeny, 



" Half is his aucl half is hers ; it will be worthy of the two." 



To every general rule there are always some exceptions ; and 

 while proclaiming as absolute the law of individual transmission, 

 that the parents are often reproduced in their offspring, we 

 are met by the obvious fact of the offspring often exhibiting so 

 marked a departure from their parents, that the law seems at 

 fault. The most singular modification of this law of inherit- 

 ance is known as atavism (from the Latin atavus, an ancestor), 

 in accordance with which the individual does not resemble 

 either parent, but the grand-parent or some ancestor in either 

 the direct or collateral line. Exceptions of this sort are com- 

 mon in the human species, and not unfrequently among the 

 lower animals, which sometimes bring forth young so utterly 

 unlike themselves as to have been long mistaken for different 

 species ; while these young in their turn bring forth animals 

 exactly like their ancestors. 



