PRINCIPLES AND PEACTICB OF BKBEDJNG. 109 



qualities of his fleece to his progeny. He, it is true, transmits 

 a fleece which is much heavier and flner than that of the ewe ; 

 and if again crossed with the half-blood, he transmits addi- 

 tional weight and fineness. Each ascending grade toward the 

 Merino will continue more and more to resemble the Merino 

 in these particulars. But the process is gradual, not immediate ; 

 the properties are transmitted by degrees, not by halves. 



The Ortonian theory, as applied to the transmission of 

 form, in sheep, has a little more apparent foundation. The 

 ram^ does, much oftener than the ewe, transmit his general 

 external structure to the progeny. But the hypothesis that 

 he does so as invariably as Mr. Orton contends, or as Mr. 

 Walker contends in the case of crosses between different 

 breeds, or even as generally as Mr. Spooner supposes,* will 

 fall to the ground at once when examined in the light of actual 

 facts. In any and every flock of lambs, whether pure blood 

 or crossed, there will be found entirely too many to be classed 

 as mere exceptions, which, without breeding back of their 

 immediate parents, do take the general form of the dam, and 

 not that of the sire. And it will also be found that the 

 instances which, even by the most liberal resort to imagina- 

 tion, can be adduced as proofs of the theory of a strict 

 transmission by halves, and of such a division of those halves 

 as the advocates of the theory have agreed on, do not 

 comprise a majority of cases. In my judgment, they do not 

 include a fourth of them; and could scarcely be shown 

 conclusively to include any. As a general thing we see 

 distinct resemblances to each parent, or modified resemblances 

 to both parents, existing in different proportions in the form, 

 the fleece and the skin. One lamb has a carcass mostly like 

 that of its sire and a fleece mostly like that of its dam.f 

 Another takes a middle place between its parents in one or 

 both particulars. Another actually, to some degree, divides 

 the form, taking, for example, the shoulders of the dam with 

 the hind quarters of the sire, or vice versa. I have a specific 

 case in view of a ram (" 21 per cent.,") which has a shoulder 

 obviously defective in being too thin. He transmits most of 

 his form, his fleece, etc., to his progeny, with marked force. 

 But not one in thirty of them exhibits a thin shoulder. By 



* I mean making all due allowance for breeding back, or for an exceptional -want 

 of relative vigor in tile male, &c., &c. 



+ I think it is Tiot common to see these two characteristics qnite so broadly divided ; 

 and probably never, when the pure blood ram is coupled with the cross-bred ewe. 

 But with both those pure and cross-breeds which most resemble their sires in form, it 

 is common to see the fleeceatleast^g^faf/^ partaking of the characteristics of the dam. 



