72 Forty Years Beagling 



mal circumstances, and if this can take place in the 

 vegetable Idngdom why not in the animal? 



"Dr. Mills may argue that there is this differ- 

 ence: Mr. Millais contends that it requires a 

 second fertilization to cause an already fertilized 

 ovum to produce a foetus. Dr. Mills would be 

 right in calhng attention to such a difference, and 

 the reason I contend that in the case of the mam- 

 malian dormant o^oim a second fertilization is re- 

 quired is this : If a second were not required then 

 we could see the strange anomaly of a bitch at her 

 second and even third and fourth heat, and as long 

 as such dormant but fertilized ova remain in her 

 ovary, becoming pregnant without previous copula- 

 tion with the second, third and fourth putative sires 

 of offsprings which were begot by the first, a con- 

 dition which exists in some of the fowls. 



"If her ova were fertilized and lay dormant and 

 she did not conceive at a second heat without the 

 attention of a second male, the influence of a previ- 

 ous sire would at once be palpable to the most 

 ignorant man, but as a second fertilization is re- 

 quired, it is owing to this fact that men cannot 

 grasp the phenomenon in its true light, and it is 

 further owing to this fact that the produce so 

 affected do not show quite so much personal re- 

 semblance to the first sire as they otherwise would. 



