THE INADEQUACY OF "NATURAL SELECTION." 165 



ticate the quagga, and having obtained a male, but not a female, 

 he made an experiment. 



" I tried to breed from the male quagga and a young chestnut mare of seven - 

 eighths Arabian blood, and which had never been bred from ; the result was the 

 production of a female hybrid, now five years old, and bearing, both in her form 

 and in her color, very decided indications oi her mixed origin. I subsequently 

 parted with the seven-eighths Arabian mare to Sir Gore Ouseley, who has bred 

 from her by a very fine black Arabian horse. I yesterday morning examined the 

 produce, namely, a two-year-old filly and a year-old colt. They have the charac- 

 ter of the Arabian breed as decidedly as can be expected, where fifteen-sixteenths 

 of the blood are Arabian ; and they are tine specimens of that breed ; but both in 

 their color and in the hair of their manes, they have a striking resemblance to the 

 quagga. Their color is bay, marked more or less like the quagga in a darker tint. 

 Both are distinguished by the dark line along the ridge of the back, the dark 

 stripes across the fore-hand, and the dark bars across the back part of the legs." * 



Lord Morton then names sundry further correspondences. Dr. 

 Wollaston, at that time President of the Royal Society, who had 

 seen the animals, testified to the correctness of his description, 

 and, as shown by his remarks, entertained no doubt about the al- 

 leged facts. But good reason for doubt may be assigned. There 

 naturally arises the question How does it happen that parallel 

 results are not observed in other cases ? If in any progeny cer- 

 tain traits not belonging to the sire, but belonging to a sire of 

 preceding progeny, are reproduced, how is it that such anoma- 

 lously-inherited traits are not observed in domestic animals, and 

 indeed in mankind ? How is it that the children of a widow by a 

 second husband do not bear traceable resemblances of the first 

 husband ? To these questions nothing like satisfactory replies 

 seem forthcoming ; and, in the absence of replies, skepticism, if 

 not disbelief, may be held reasonable. 



There is an explanation, however. Forty years ago I made 

 acquaintance with a fact which impressed me by its significant 

 implications ; and has for this reason, I suppose, remained in my 

 memory. It is set forth in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural 

 Society, vol. xiv (1853), pp. 214 et seq., and concerns certain results 

 of crossing English and French breeds of sheep. The writer of 

 the translated paper, M. Malingie'-Nouel, Director of the Agri- 

 cultural School of La Charmoise, states that when the French 

 breeds of sheep (in which were included " the mongrel Merinos ") 

 were crossed with an English breed, " the lambs present the fol- 

 lowing results. Most of them resemble the mother more than the 

 father ; some show no trace of the father." Joining the admis- 

 sion respecting the mongrels with the facts subsequently stated, 

 it is tolerably clear that the cases in which the lambs bore no 



* Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society for the Year 1821, Port I, pp. 20-24. 



