Essentials of Animal Breeding. 33 



SOME INCORRECT IDEAS OF HEREDITY. 



From the earliest beginnings of rational mental processes human 

 beings have asked the question " Why ? " Failing to receive an 

 answer concerning things which they could not understand they 

 have theorized and developed explanations as a result of such theories 

 which often have not had any basis in fact. From the time when the 

 simple shepherds of Asia watched their flocks beneath the stars and 

 wondered at the mysteries of nature around, above, and beneath 



A Fast-Disappearing Type. 



FIG. 28. Native Piney-Woods sow. Note the wattles. These sows are prolific, good 

 milkers, and good mothers. In other respects they have nothing to commend them. 

 Purebred sows are just as prolific, just as good milkers and mothers, and make pork 

 far more rapidly and more economically. 



them, man has marveled at the mysteries of heredity. In some form 

 or other many of these meditations have persisted until modern 

 times as beliefs for which no unassailable proof has ever been pre- 

 sented. 



TELEGONY. 



These beliefs are sometimes intensified by an apparent confirmation 

 from scientific sources. Possibly the most outstanding instance of 

 this kind is the famous case of Lord Morton's mare, which in the 

 opinion of the great Charles Darwin confirmed the theory of telegony. 



