46 THE PRACTICAL PIGEOIT KEEPEK. 



strain vaguely, in the sense that they are from some birds 

 which have won prizes, but of Mr. A's strain ; and we italicise 

 this, because it is the -working out of what it means that is 

 the clue to the matter. There is no charm, of course, in Mr. 

 A's name merely ; it is something he has done that has made 

 his strain thus valuable. What is it 1 For what one man has 

 done, another may do. 



What is known as the "family likeness" of children to 

 their parents is familiar to all, as is also the fact that in 

 degree it differs very widely in different individuals. Some- 

 times it cannot be traced to aiij one feature particularly, but 

 is due to an undefinable general impression the whole person 

 somehow produces ; in others, some strongly marked feature 

 can be clearly discerned ; and in yet others no visible likeness 

 can be traced at all, while there may or may not be evident 

 mental and moral resemblances. If, for instance, the father 

 has a well-marked Roman nose, it is likely this feature may be 

 recognised in at least a portion of his offspring; while it possibly 

 fails in others whose faces, nevertheless, show other traces of 

 his lineaments, complicated perhaps with those of the mother 

 or of other members of either parent family. Again, in 

 numerous cases where no resemblance at all can be traced to 

 the parents, there is often a veiy startling one to the grand- 

 parents, or even to ancestors still further back. Hence it 

 appeai-s that features have a more or less strong tendency to be 

 transmitted to posterity, even beyond the next immediate step 

 in the pedigree ; and peculiar or extraordinary features, such 

 as the possession of six digits at each extremity, instead of five, 

 are often thus transmitted very strongly. Many facts of this 

 class, which we need not specify in detail, have well established 

 the general law that every feature in every animal has s(yme 

 tendency to repeat itself, and would do so more or less, were 

 that tendency not counteracted by others of a different 

 character. Thus, if one of two parents has black hair and the 



