HEREDITY. 437 



coincident in all the individuals of immense flocks, is 

 a mathematical absurdity. 



"We have an analogous regional character in the 

 hoofs of horses. From early times it has been a known 

 fact that the feet of horses produced in mountainous 

 and hilly regions stand travel on hard roads and on city 

 pavements better than those bred on softer low lands, 

 however rich and fertile the latter may be. European 

 writers of previous centuries are very specific on this 

 point. Jacquet, over two centuries ago, cites it as a 

 fact true alike in Spain, Italy, and other countries of 

 Europe. I have interviewed the livery-stable men in 

 various eastern cities as to the relative character in 

 that particular of the horses bred in the hilly regions 

 of New England, New York, and Pennsylvania, com- 

 pared with those produced on the prairies, and the 

 testimony is almost unanimous to the same effect. 

 The old Vermont bred horses are still famous. 



"This regional character cannot be a matter of se- 

 lection and adventitious variation. It must be related 

 to the environment alone, and environment can only 

 act on the living individual. If this fact is due to the 

 inheritance of acquired characters, it is very easily 

 understood. The different effects of exercise of the 

 feet of the growing animal in the one case on the hard, 

 stony soil of the hills, in the other, on the softer and 

 fine soil of the prairies, makes a difference in the ac- 

 quired characters, a difference of the very kind spoken 

 of, and which becomes congenital." 



At the close of this series of papers Brewer re- 

 marks : "The art of breeding has become in a meas- 

 ure an applied science ; the enormous economic inter- 

 ests involved stimulate observation and study, and 

 what is the practical result? This ten years of active 



