MONGREL BEEEDING. 291 



or generative system, becomes, ever after, herself so nearly a 

 hybrid, that she is thenceforth incapable of producing a pure 

 progeny, even to a pure sire. 



The case referred to above, on page 265, of the series of hy- 

 brids, preserved in the museum of the College of Surgeons, fur- 

 nishes a most singular corroboration of this theory. 



The circumstances are these — A thoroughbred mare, of ex- 

 tremely high blood, from which it was anxiously desired to ob- 

 tain a progeny, was stinted several times to thorouglibred stal- 

 lions, but was always barren. It was suggested to the owner, 

 that she might possibly stand in foal, if tried to some of the 

 ferine varieties of the horse ; and that, if her barrenness could 

 be once overcome, she would, doubtless, in future prove fruitful 

 by animals of her own type. She was accordingly stinted to a 

 quagga, the striped South African animal, akin to the Zebra, — 

 procured from a menagerie for the purpose, — and, as it was pre- 

 dicted, stood in foal to him, and produced a striped hybrid. There- 

 after, she was stinted three times in succession to three different 

 stallions of pure blood — there being, of course, no possible means 

 by which the wild African horse could have had second access 

 to her — and, in each instance, she gave birth to a striped hybrid. 



Phenomena of the same description are so common in the 

 case of bitclies of any pure race, which may have been casually 

 warded by dogs of another family, or by mongrels, that dog- 

 fanciers will not attempt to breed from such, as have once borne 

 ignoble or hybrid litters ; knowing the tendency of the mothers, 

 to breed 5«eA', as it is technically termed, to the type of the first 

 parent. 



Some writers have endeavored to account for this strange 

 anomaly, as it would seem to be, by attributing it to the effect 

 of a first love on the imagination of the female parent; but, 

 although it be admitted that imagination has its influence on the 

 generative organs, and to some degree on the whole system of 

 generation, it seems to be ascribing more than a reasonable, 

 or conceivable duration to a gaere mental affection, when 

 one assumes its capacity to alter the whole formal and physical 

 organization of animals, regularly bred of like parents, to the 

 fourth generation. 



The first thing, therefore, in my view of the subject, is to de- 



