Geology and Natural History. 67 
tion. His earliest papers were published in 1840; the most im- 
S 
The loss by M. Thuret’s unexpected decease is mos 
serious, A. G. 
17. An Inquiry Respecting the Reversion of “ Thoroughbred” 
Domestic Animals ; by WiiriaM H. Brewer of New Haven, 
Conn. (From the Proceedings of the American Association for 
the Advancement of Science, Hartford meeting, 1874.)—* * * 
improvement is often accompanied e d important 
changes of form and str Now, as this improvement and 
nge are unquestionably the results of man’s care, it is often 
ch 
stated that if the care be withdrawn, then the breed will retrace 
down by the same road that it came up (only 
vastly faster, the downhill road being the easier travelled), and 
be i i use the more familiar 
tures of eminent scientific men, and also in our scientific literature, 
and in the papers read before our learned societies, and from th 
high authorities it spreads and descends through various channels 
At the last meeting of this association, this dogma of reversion 
was strongly insisted on in one of the papers, and I find on p. B, 
404, of the last volume of its “Proceedings,” this: “The hog has 
been eter | changed by domestication, and yet, when left to him- 
self, he soon returns to the original type. During the late war 
