572 GENETICS IN RELATION TO AGRICULTURE 
respect to the stature of successive children in the same families. He 
finds no evidence whatever of saturation, or as he states it of a ‘steady 
telegonic influence.” 
Maternal Impression.—The belief in maternal impression, or in the 
effect of the pregnant mother upon her growing fetus, is one of the en- 
during tenets of popular faith. We need not trouble ourselves here with 
the long series of influences which are supposed to pass from the mother 
to the unborn child in human beings. Suffice it to state that they are no 
more varied nor yet more tenable than those cases which have been 
described for domestic animals. 
Many curious cases from that of Jacob’s peeled wands! down to those 
of far more recent times might be cited from the chronicles of maternal 
impression; but like the belief in telegony, they all spring from the un- 
scientific attitude of the popular mind toward isolated instances. We 
suspect for instance that the famous Biblical herdsman used other 
methods than that of the peeled wands in order to achieve his remarkable 
results. 
An instance may be given as typical of those which are recounted in 
support of the belief in the effect of maternal impressions, although in reality 
it is stronger than most cases. A section of a well-known Scottish herd 
of Aberdeen-Angus cattle which was separated from an Ayrshire herd 
by only a wire fence persistently produced, for several successive genera- 
tions, red and black-and-white calves. But this was the formative period 
of the breed, and we have already had occasion to mention the diversity of 
color which characterized Aberdeen-Angus foundation stock. The oc- 
currence of red and black-and-white calves, therefore, is a simple con- 
sequence of the cropping out of recessive factors, the Mendelian ex- 
planation is adequate and satisfactory. Moreover it is not entirely 
improper for us to call attention to the utter confusion which would pre- 
vail in herds of Aberdeen-Angus cattle, if this phenomenon were of gen- 
eral occurrence. We venture to state that very few breeders of solid- 
colored cattle have had such trouble from the proximity of herds of 
Holstein-Friesian, Shorthorn, Ayrshire, and other breeds of cattle, not 
to mention other sources of contamination which might occur. 
But some of the legends of Aberdeen-Angus history are even more 
curious than this one. It 1s recorded of the famous breeder McCombie of 
Tillyfour that he erected a high black fence around his breeding paddock. 
But it may be expected that McCombie having as his ideal the black 
polled Aberdeen-Angus cattle used other means of securing a strain 
breeding pure for the typical Aberdeen-Angus characters. 
Like the belief in telegony, the belief in maternal impressions arises 
from an unscientific attitude of mind toward evidence in general. The 
1Cf. Genesis 30 : 31—43. 
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