The Laws of Heredity. 169 



is officially vouched for, and as it shows, in the case of a pair of 

 negroes, a very singular hereditary disposition. 



' Two negro slaves, living on the same Virginian plantation, 

 were married. The wife gave birth to a daughter who was 

 perfectly white. On seeing the colour of the child she was seized 

 with alarm, and while protesting that she never had intercourse with 

 a white man, she tried to hide the infant, and put out the light, 

 lest the father should see it. He soon came in, complained of 

 the unusual darkness of the room, and asked to see the babe ; 

 the mother's fears were increased when she saw the father ap- 

 proach with a light, but when he saw the child he appeared 

 pleased. A few days afterwards he said to his wife : " You were 

 afraid of me because my child was white, but I love her all the 

 more on that account. My own father was white, although my 

 grandfather and grandmother were as black as you and I. Al- 

 though we are come from a country where white men were never 

 seen, still there has always been one white child in families related 

 to ours." This girl was sold to Admiral Ward when she was 

 fifteen years old, was brought by him to London, and exhibited 

 before the Royal Society. 



'It appears that phenomena of this nature have occurred even 

 in Africa, and Admiral Fleuriot Delangle lately told me of an 

 analogous case.' 



Reversional heredity in insanity is well established, as we have 

 seen. It is not unusual to find persons descended from insane 

 ancestors living to the age of thirty or forty with every sign of 

 judgment and reason, who then became insane without any 

 assignable cause. Gintrac records that a man who had become 

 insane had sons, men of ability, filling public offices with distinc- 

 tion. Their children were at first sane, but at the age of twenty 

 gave signs of insanity. Facts like these are recounted by all 

 writers on insanity. 



As regards the reversional heredity of talents, character, aptitudes, 

 and passions, it is of as frequent occurrence as purely organic 

 heredity. In the following table we give some instances of this, 

 which have been already treated of in detail in the First Part. 



