46 PRINCIPLES OF BREEDING. 



manufacturers of Cashmere shawls and similar goods, 

 being second only to the true Cashmere fleece, in the 

 fine flexible delicacy of the fibre ; and when in combina- 

 tion with Cashmere wool, imparting strength and con- 

 sistency. The quantity of the wool has now become 

 as great or greater than from ordinary Merinos, while 

 the quality commands for it twenty-five per cent, higher 

 price in the French market. Surely breeders cannot 

 watch too closely any accidental peculiarity of conform- 

 ation or characteristic in their flocks or herds. '^ 



Mons. Yilmorin, the eminent horticulturist of Paris, 

 has likened the law of similarity to the centripetal force, 

 and the law of variation to the centrifugal force ; and 

 in truth their operations seem analogous, and possibly 

 they may be the same in kind, though certainly unlike 

 in this, that they are not reducible to arithmetical calcu- 

 lation and cannot be subjected to definite measurement. 

 His thought is at least a highly suggestive one and 

 may be pursued with profit. 



Among the ''faint rays" alluded to by Mr. Darwin 

 as throwing light upon the changes dependent on the 

 laws of reproduction, there is one, perhaps the brightest 

 yet seen, which deserves our notice. It is the apparent 

 influence of the male first having fruitful intercourse 

 with a female upon her subsequent offspring by other 

 males. Attention was first directed to this by the fol- 

 lowing circumstance, related by Sir Everard Home : A 

 young chestnut mare, seven-eighths Arabian, belonging 



