93 



dence of this, in crossed pigeons, and with various 

 plants. Mr. Sidney states that, in a litter of Essex 

 pigs, two young ones appeared which were the image 

 of the Berkshire boar that had been used twenty-eight 

 years before in giving size and constitution to the 

 breed. I observed in the barn yard at Betley Hall, 

 some fowls, showing a strong likeness to the Malay 

 breed, and was told by Mr. Toilet that he had, forty 

 years before, crossed his birds with Malays, and that, 

 though he had at first attempted to get rid of this 

 strain, he had subsequently given up the attempt, as 

 the Malay characters would appear * * * No 

 rule can be laid down, in cases of a cross, how soon 

 the tendency to reversion will be obliterated * * * 

 But we must be careful, not to confound these cases 

 of reversion to characters gained from a cross, with 

 those given under the first class, in which characters 

 originally common to both parents, but lost at some 

 former period ; for such characters may recur, after an 

 almost indefinite number of generations." 



Again he says: 



"Many sub-varieties of the pigeon have reversed, 

 and somewhat lengthened feathers on the back of 

 the head, and this is certainly not due to the species, 

 under nature, which shows no trace of such a struc- 

 ture, but * * * we may suspect that reversion 

 to some extremely remote form has come into action." 



On page 74, Vol. ii, Animals and Plants, &c, he 

 says: 



" No doubt it appears, at first sight, in the highest 

 degree improbable that, in. every horse, of every gen- 

 eration, there should be a latent capacity and tendency 

 to produce stripes, though these may not appear once 

 in a thousand generations ; that in every white, black, 

 9 



