Chap. XIII. 



REVERSION. 



31 



rations, but always with the same result. Mr. Fox was also 

 told by the friend from whom the spotted breed was procured, 

 that he likewise had gone on for six or seven generations 

 crossing with white sheep, but still black lambs were invariably 

 produced. 



Similar facts could be given with respect to tailless breeds 

 of various animals. For instance, Mr. Hewitt 6 states that 

 chickens bred from some Eumpless fowls, which were reckoned 

 so good that they won a prize at an exhibition, ' ' in a consider- 

 able number of instances were furnished with fully developed 

 tail-feathers." On inquiry, the original breeder of these fowls 

 stated that, from the time when he had first kept them, they 

 had often produced fowls furnished with tails ; but that these 

 latter would again reproduce rumpless chickens. 



Analogous cases of reversion occur in the vegetable kingdom ; 

 thus "from seeds gathered from the finest cultivated varieties of 

 Heartsease {Viola tricolor), plants perfectly wild both in their 

 foliage and their flowers are frequently produced;" 7 but the 

 reversion in this instance is not to a very ancient period, for the 

 best existing varieties of the heartsease are of comparatively 

 modern origin. With most of our cultivated vegetables there is 

 some tendency to reversion to what is known to be, or may be 

 presumed to be, their aboriginal state ; and this would be more 

 evident if gardeners did not generally look over their beds of 

 seedlings, and pull up the false plants or « rogues " as they are 

 called. It has already been remarked, that some few seedling 

 apples and pears generally resemble, but apparently are not 

 identical with, the wild trees from which they are descended. 

 In our turnip 8 and carrot-beds a few plants often "break"— 

 that is flower too soon ; and their roots are generally found to 

 be hard and stringy, as in the parent-species. By the aid of a 

 little selection, carried on during a few generations, most of our 

 cultivated plants could probably be brought back, without any 

 great change in their conditions of life, to a wild or nearly wild 

 condition: Mr. Buckman has effected this with the parsnip -• 



6 ' The Poultry Book,' by Mr. Te°-et- 

 meier, 1866, p. 231. 



7 Loudon's 'Gard. Mag.,' vol. x., 1834, 

 p. 396 : a nurseryman, with much ex- 



perience on this subject, has likewise 

 assured me that this sometimes occurs. 



8 ' Gardener's Chron.,' 1855, p. 777. 



9 Ibid., 1862, p. 721. 



