222 CROSSING AND CLOSE-INTERBREEDING. 



their likeness. * * * It would appear that, in cer- 

 tain families, some one ancestor, and, after him, others 

 in the same family, must have had great power in 

 transmitting their likeness through the male line; for 

 we cannot otherwise understand how the same features 

 should so often be transmitted after marriages with 

 various females, as has been the case with the Austrian 

 Emperors, and, as, according to Niebuhr, formerly 

 occurred in certain Roman families, with the mental 

 qualities. The famous bull, Favorite, is believed to 

 have had a prepotent influence on the short-horn race. 

 It has also been observed with the English race-horse, 

 that certain mares have generally transmitted their 

 own characters, whilst other mares, of equally pure 

 blood, have allowed the character of the sire to pre- 

 vail." 



When an individual, with a positive character, 

 strongly developed, mates with another, with the same 

 character less developed, or indifferently well devel- 

 oped, or somewhat reduced, the former will be pre- 

 potent, in such character, over the other; because the 

 character mentioned, will, other things equal — for in- 

 stance, if the same character, in the less potent parent, 

 be not so much reduced, or so wholly suppressed, as to 

 dimmish, in the offspring, the size of the character — 

 be transmitted to such offspring. The reason why, in 

 these cases, the smaller development, of the character, 

 in the less potent parent, does not obtain to diminish 

 the size of the character, as it exists in the prepotent 

 parent, is because, there still remains, in the less potent 

 parent, the power of reversion in such character, which 

 concurs with the same character, in the prepotent 

 parent, to keep it up to the high state of development. 



