HEREDITY. 305 



of his flock but to change it altogether." Lord Somervillc, 

 speaking of what breeders have done for sheep, says : — " It 

 would seem that the}^ have chalked upon a wall a form per- 

 fect in itself and then given it existence.'^ That most skil- 

 ful breeder. Sir John Sebright, used to say, with respect to 

 pigeons, that " he would produce any given feather in three 

 years, but it would take him six years to obtain head and 

 beak." In all which statements the tacit assertion is, that 

 individual traits are bequeathed from generation to genera- 

 tion, and may be so perpetuated and increased as to become 

 permanent distinctions. . 



Of special instances there are many besides that of the 

 often-cited Otto-breed of sheep, descended from a single short- 

 legged lamb, and that of the six-fingered Gratio Kelleia, who 

 transmitted his peculiarity, in different degrees, to several of 

 his children and to some of his grandchildren. In a paper 

 contributed to the Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal for 

 July, 1863, Dr. (now Sir John) Struthers gives cases of heredi- 

 tary digital variations. Esther P — ,who had six fingers on one 

 hand, bequeathed this malformation along some lines of her 

 descendants for two, three, and four generations. A — S — 

 inherited an extra digit on each hand and each foot from his 

 father; and C — G — , who also had six fingers and six toes, 

 had an aunt and a grandmother similarly formed. A collec- 

 tion of evidence published by Mr. Sedgwick in the Medico- 

 Chirurgical Review for April and for July, 1863, in two 

 articles on " The Influence of Sex in limiting Hereditary 

 Transmission," includes the following cases: — Augustin 

 Duforet, a pastry-cook of Douai, who had but two instead of 

 three phalanges to all his fingers and toes, inherited this 

 malformation from his grandfather and father, and had it in 

 common with an uncle and numerous cousins. An account 

 has been given by Dr. Lepine, of a man with only three 

 fingers on each hand and four toes on each foot, and whose 

 grandfather and son exhibited the like anomaly. Bechet 

 describes Victoire Barre as a woman who, like her father and 



