ATAVISM, OR REVERSION. 41 



his musicians play the psalm-tunes which he 

 loved. One thinks of a descendant of his two 

 hundred years afterward, blind, old, and lost of 

 wits, singing 'Handel' in Windsor Tower." 



Remarkable as this case is it is possible to 

 more than parallel it with many instances of 

 the highest authentication which have been 

 recorded by breeders of various sorts of ani- 

 mals. One of the most noteworthy of these is 

 that of a pointer bitch which at a particular 

 time produced seven puppies at a litter, of 

 which four were "marked with blue and 

 white." This was so uncommon a color for 

 the breed that it was supposed that some dog 

 of another breed had had access to her and all 

 the litter were marked for destruction, but the 

 game-keeper was permitted to keep one as a 

 curiosity: "Two years afterward a friend of 

 the owner saw the young dog and declared that 

 he was the image of his old pointer bitch Sap- 

 pho, the only blue-and-white pointer of pure 

 descent which he had ever seen. This led to 

 close inquiry, and it was proved that he was 

 the great-great-grandson of Sappho." (Darwin, 

 "Animals and Plants," etc.) 



But it is quite unnecessary to multiply in- 

 stances. Under my own observation have come 

 many cases. One class of cases which are spe- 

 cially frequent in Short-horn cattle is that of 

 reversion to the colors of ancestors. This is so 



