52 PRINCIPLES OF BREEDING. 



and more particularly on the ova of the female:* and 

 by others to an abiding influence exerted by him on the 

 imagination and operating at the time of her connection 

 subsequently with other males and perhaps during her 

 pregnancy ; but they seem to be regarded by most 

 physiologists as inexplicable. 



Very recently, in a paper published in the Aberdeen 

 Journal, a Veterinary Surgeon, Mr. James McGillivray 

 of Huntley, has offered an explanation which seems to 

 me to be the true one. His theory is that " when a 

 pure animal of any breed has been pregnant to an animal 

 of a different breed, such pregnant animal is a cross ever 

 after, the purity of her blood being lost in consequence of 

 her connection with the foreign animal, herself becoming 

 A CROSS FOREVER, incapable of producing a pure calf of 

 any breed." 



Dr. Harvey believes " that while as all allow, a por- 

 tion of the mother's blood is continually passing by 

 absorption and assimilation into the body of the foetus, 

 in order to its nutrition and development, a portion of 

 the blood of the fcetus is as constantly passing in like 

 manner into the body of the mother ; that as this com- 

 mingles there with the general mass of the mother's 



* The late M. A. Cuming, V. S. , of New Brunswick, once remarked 

 to the writer, that It might be due to the fact that the nerves of the 

 uterus, which before the first impregnation were in a rudimentary 

 state, were developed under a specific influence from the semen of the 

 first male, and that they might retain so much of a peculiar style of 

 development as to impress upon future progeny by other males the 

 likeness of the first. 



