August 20, 1900] 



SCIENCE 



241 



house, M.Sc, D.Sc, F.6.S., assistant lecturer 

 in geology, Leeds University. Hygiene: Mr. 

 W. J. Wilson, B.A., M.D., E.U.I., Eiddell 

 demonstrator of pathology and bacteriology. 

 Queen's College, Belfast. 



Dr. Arthur Eobinson, professor of anatomy 

 in the University of Birmingham, has been 

 called to the chair of anatomy in Edinburgh 

 University, rendered vacant by the death of 

 Professor D. J. Cunningham. 



Nature is informed that the appointments to 

 the chairs of chemistry in the Technical High 

 School at Munich have just been officially an- 

 nounced. The names of the professors are : 

 Organic chemistry, Professor Semmler; inor- 

 ganic chemistry. Professor A. Stock; physical 

 chemistry. Professor E. Abegg. Each pro- 

 fessor has an institute of his own, and Professor 

 Abegg retains, at the same time, his position 

 as extraordinary professor in the University of 

 Breslau. The Technical High School, which 

 is being built at a cost of something like five 

 million Marks, is making good progress, and 

 is to be opened officially in October, 1910. 



Dr. F. Einne, professor of mineralogy at 

 Kiel, has been called to Leipzig. 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE 



TELEGONY AS INDUCED REVERSION 



Darwin and many other students of heredity 

 have believed in telegony, and have collected 

 many alleged examples. The typical instances 

 were the striped colts produced by mares that 

 had previously borne quagga hybrids.' The 

 original theory of telegony assumed that the 

 stripes of the later colts were inherited from 

 the quagga sire of the first colt. Various at- 

 tempts have been made to show how this could 

 come about, but they were not able to secure 

 scientific credence. 



The tendency shown in Thomson's " Hered- 

 ity " and other recent handbooks is to deny 

 telegony altogether and to treat the alleged 

 cases as ordinary instances of reversion. In 

 Morgan's " Experimental Zoology " telegony is 

 dismissed as "another breeder's myth," and is 

 used as an illustration of the " credulity of 



' " The Variatian of Animals and Plants under 

 Domestication," Chapter XI. 



men who have not been trained as to the value 

 of evidence." 



It is curious that this zeal for evidence 

 allowed the fact to be overlooked that Darwin 

 knew of three striped colts following quagga 

 hybrids, instead of only one. This oversight 

 may be partly responsible for the verdict 

 reached in Professor Morgan's discussion of 

 the supposed single case : " There was, then, 

 merely a coincidence, and not a causal con- 

 nection." 



The additional evidence collected by Ewart 

 has bearing upon the nature of the facts that 

 have been grouped under telegony, but it does 

 not explain the occurrence of such phenomena 

 as sequels of hybridization. To reckon the 

 striped colts as examples of reversion aSords 

 no proper warrant for denying any connection 

 with the fact that the mares had previously 

 borne quagga colts, or for assuming that such 

 reversions are without scientific interest or 

 practical importance. To know that charac- 

 ters of remote ancestors are likely to return to 

 expression in progeny that follow hybrids may 

 be quite as significant, from the standpoint of 

 heredity, as the idea of long-range transmis- 

 sion from the male parent of the hybrid. 



Before pronouncing telegony a myth, a fur- 

 ther possibility should be taken into account, 

 that the stripes of a later colt may be induced 

 by the previous contact with the quagga, not 

 through any form of transmission or " infec- 

 tion " with character-units or primordia from 

 the quagga, but by giving a stronger tendency 

 to expression to a primitive characteristic al- 

 ready included in latent form in the repro- 

 ductive cells of the female. In his hybrids 

 between zebras and horses Ewart found that 

 the stripes were not like those of the striped 

 parent, but of a much mdre complex pattern, 

 indicating that a primitive character of some 

 remote ancestor came into expression, instead 

 of a character directly transmitted from the 

 zebra. Ewart does not use his evidence to 

 prove that striped colts following hybrids are 

 mere coincidences, but to show that the theory 

 of long-range transmission from the male 

 parent is unnecessary.' 



'Ewart, J. C, "The Penycuik Experiments," 

 1899. 



