164 Inheritance of Acquired Characters 
Hungary. This cow whose horns were 19 cm. long gave 
birth to a calf with horns 22 cm. long. The calf of this 
calf born also in Hungary, (presumably from a father 
of the same race as that of the mother?) had horns 23 
cm. long and thicker than those of its mother and grand- 
mother.13? 
So of the three centimeters of elongation, due to the 
action of the environment, which we can regard as 
functional adaptation in the widest sense, one centimeter 
would have become hereditary in a single generation. It 
is however evident that experiments of this nature can- 
not have any real significance unless they are made on 
a large scale, so that an average can be established from 
many instances. And this experiment of Wilckens has 
been mentioned here just because the way in which it 
was conducted comes close to possessing the requisite 
and indispensable conditions of a fundamental proof. 
Another instance which the partisans of the inherita- 
bility of acquired characters adduce is brought forward 
by Spencer: it is that of the Punjabi of India, who have 
certain muscle imprints on the bones of the leg, and 
certain facets in the articulations of the hip, knee and 
foot, which are produced by their habit of squatting upon 
the ground; and these peculiarities are hereditary, as is 
demonstrated by the fact that they commence to show 
themselves even in the foetus. 
Weismann seeks to demonstrate that they are only 
the continuation in man of certain peculiarities in the 
articulations of anthropoid apes which natural selection 
had already fixed in very ancient times becausé they 
**tWilckens: Die Theorie erworbener Eigenschaften vom Stand- 
punkte der landwirtschaftlichen Tierzucht in Bezug auf Weismanns 
Theorie der Vererbung. Biol. Zentralbl., July 15, 1803. P. 426. 
