HEREDITARY TRANSMISSION AND VARIATION, 95 



very carefully at the time. It frequently happens that a 

 variation occurs, but the persons who notice it do not 

 take any care in noting down the particulars, until at 

 length, when inquiries come to be made, the exact 

 circumstances are forgotten ; and hence, multitudinous 

 as may be such "spontaneous" variations, it is ex- 

 ceedingly difficult to get at the origin of them. 



The second case is one of which you may find the 

 whole details in the " Philosophical Transactions " for 

 the year 1813, in a paper communicated by Colonel 

 Humphrey to the President of the Royal Society, — 

 " On a new Variety in the Breed of Sheep,'' giving an 

 account of a very remarkable breed of sheep, which 

 at one time was well known in the northern states of 

 America, and which went by the name of the Ancon or 

 the Otter breed of sheep. In the year 1791, there was a 

 farmer of the name of Seth Wright in Massachusetts, 

 who had a flock of sheep, consisting of a ram and, I 

 think, of some twelve or thirteen ewes. Of this flock 

 of ewes, one at the breeding-time bore a lamb which 

 was very singularly formed ; it had a very long body, 

 very short legs, and those legs Avere bowed ! I will 

 tell you by-and-by how this singular variation in the 

 breed of sheep came to be noted, and to have the 

 prominence that it now has. For the present, I men- 

 tion only these two cases j but the extent of variation 

 in the breed of animals is perfectly obvious to any one 

 who has studied natural history with ordinary atten- 

 tion, or to any person who compares animals with 

 others of the same kind. It is strictly true that there 

 are never any two specimens which are exactly alike?; 



