164 Inheritance of Acquired Characters 



Hungary. This cow whose horns were 19 cm. long gave 

 birth to a calf with horns 22 cm. long. The calf of this 

 calf born also in Hungary, (presumably from a father 

 of the same race as that of the mother?) had horns 23 

 cm. long and thicker than those of its mother and grand- 

 mother. 131 



So of the three centimeters of elongation, due to the 

 action of the environment, which we can regard as 

 functional adaptation in the widest sense, one centimeter 

 would have become hereditary in a single generation. It 

 is however evident that experiments of this nature can- 

 not have any real significance unless they are made on 

 a large scale, so that an average can be established from 

 many instances. And this experiment of Wilckens has 

 been mentioned here just because the way in which it 

 was conducted comes close to possessing the requisite 

 and indispensable conditions of a fundamental proof. 



Another instance which the partisans of the inherita- 

 bility of acquired characters adduce is brought forward 

 by Spencer: it is that of the Punjabi of India, who have 

 certain muscle imprints on the bones of the leg, and 

 certain facets in the articulations of the hip, knee and 

 foot, which are produced by their habit of squatting upon 

 the ground; and these peculiarities are hereditary, as is 

 demonstrated by the fact that they commence to show 

 themselves even in the foetus. 



Weismann seeks to demonstrate that they are only 

 the continuation in man of certain peculiarities in the 

 articulations of anthropoid apes which natural selection 

 had already fixed in very ancient times because they 



191 Wilckens : Die Theorie erworbener Eigenschaften vom Stand- 

 punkte der landwirtschaftlichen Tierzucht in Bezug auf Weismanns 

 Theorie der Vererbung. Biol. Zentralbl., July 15, 1893. P. 426. 



