84 PRINCIPLES OF BREEDING. 



union of a tall man with a short woman, the result in 

 some instances is that all the children are tall and in 

 others all short ; or sometimes that some are short and 

 others tall. Within our own knowledge in one case, 

 where the father was tall and the mother short, the 

 children, six in number, are all tall. In another in- 

 stance, the father being short and the mother tall, the 

 children, seven in number, are all of lofty stature. In 

 a third instance, the mother being tall and the father 

 short, the greater portion of the family are short. Such 

 facts as these are sufficient to prove that hight or 

 growth does not exclusively follow either the one parent 

 or the other. Although this is the case, it is also a 

 striking fact that the union of tall and short parents 

 rarely, if ever, produces offspring of a medium size — 

 midway, as it were, between the two parents. 



Thus, in the breeding of animals, if the object be to 

 modify certain defects by using a male or female in 

 which such defects may not exist, we cannot produce 

 this desired alteration ; or rather it cannot be equally 

 produced in all the offspring, but can only be attained 

 by weeding out those in whom the objectionable points 

 are repeated. We are, however, of opinion that in the 

 majority of instances, the hight in the human subject, 

 and the size and contour in animals, is influenced much 

 more by the male than the female parent — and on the 



