170 APFE.NDIX. 



the reproductive organs of the female, and not through the 

 intervention of the crossed embi'vo. 



Another believer in telegouy who may be mentioned is 

 Agassiz. As the result of various experiments, he satisfied 

 himself "that the act of fecundation is not an act which is 

 limited in its effect, but that it is an act which affects the 

 whole system, the sexual system especially; and in the 

 sexual system the ovary to be impregnated hereafter is so 

 modified by the first act, that Inter impregnations do not 

 efface that first impression." 



But while Darwin, Spencer, Agassiz, and Eomaues believe 

 more or less firmly in telegony, there are many who are 

 either doubters or unbelievers. The most prominent of 

 these is Weismann, who inclines to the view that there is 

 no such thing as an " infection of the germ." In a 

 recent numbei' of the Ci'Dttinyrporory Bevie/r* he writes as 

 follows : 



" I must say that to this day, and in spite of the addi- 

 tional cases brought forward by Spencer and Koinaues, I 

 do not consider that telegony has been proved. 



" I do not dispute the possiliility of telegony ; I grant 

 that the wide general acceptance of the belief in the past 

 has so impressed me that I have always said that possiblj- 

 it might be justifiable and founded on fact. 1 shciuld 

 accept a case like that oi Lord ]\Iorton's mare as satis- 

 factory evidence if it were quite certainly beyond doubt. 

 But that is by no means the case, as Settegast has abun- 

 dantly proved." 



Weismann does not doubt that after the mare had borne 

 a hybrid to a cjuagga she subsequently had colts by a horse, 

 and that these were marked with stripes on the neck, 

 withers, and legs, but he contends that there were no 

 other characteristics of thequagga discernible in the colts. 

 The stripes do not in themselves, Settegast thinks, amount 

 to proof, "for every experienced liorse-breeder knows" 

 that "cases are not very rare in which colts are born with 

 stripes that recall those of the quagga or zebra. They 



* Vol. I\1V. 



