4 INHERITANCE. 



Chap. XII. 



detail of structure. But inheritance is not certain ; for if it 

 were, the breeder's art 4 would be reduced to a certainty, and 

 there would be little scope left for all that skill and perse- 

 verance shown by the men who have left an enduring monu- 

 ment of their success in the present state of our domesticated 

 animals. 



It is hardly possible, within a moderate compass, to impress 

 on the mind of those who have not attended to the subject, the 

 full conviction of the force of inheritance which is slowly acquired 

 by rearing animals, by studying the many treatises which have 

 been published on the various domestic animals, and by con- 

 versing with breeders. I will select a few facts of the kind, 

 which, as far as I can judge, have most influenced my own mind, 

 With man and the domestic animals, certain peculiarities have 

 appeared in an individual, at rare intervals, or only once or twice 

 in the history of the world, but have reappeared in several of the 

 children and grandchildren. Thus Lambert, "the porcupine- 

 man," whose skin was thickly covered with warty projections, 

 which were periodically moulted, had all his six children and 

 two grandsons similarly affected. 5 The face and body being- 

 covered with long hair, accompanied by deficient teeth (to 

 which I shall hereafter refer), occurred in three successive 

 generations in a Siamese family ; but this case is not unique, 

 as a woman 6 with a completely hairy face was exhibited in 

 London in 1663, and another instance has recently occurred. 

 Colonel Hallam 7 has described a race of two-legged pigs, " the 

 hinder extremities being entirely wanting ;" and this deficiency 

 was transmitted through three generations. In fact, all races 

 presenting any remarkable peculiarity, such as solid-hoofed swine, 

 Mauchamp sheep, niata cattle, &c, are instances of the lo] 

 continued inheritance of rare deviations of structure. 



When we reflect that certain extraordinary peculiarities have 



o 



4 ' The Stud Farm,' by Cecil, p. 39. the males alone. 



5 ' Philosophical Transactions,' 1755, 6 Barbara Van Beck, figured, as I am 

 p. 23. I have seen only second-hand informed by the Bev. W. D. Fox, in 

 accounts of the two grandsons. Mr. Woodbum's ' Gallery of Bare Portraits,' 

 Sedgwick, in a paper to which I shall 1816, vol. ii. 



hereafter often refer, states that four 1 'Proc. Zoolog. Soc.,' 1833, p. 16. 

 generations were affected, and in each 



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