Chap. XII. INHERITANCE. 465 



with like-coloured stallions, without regard to the colour of their 

 ancestors ; and of the two hundred and sixteen colts born, eleven 

 alone failed to inherit the colour of their parents : Autenrieth and 

 Amnion assert that, after two generations, colts of a uniform colour 

 are produced with certainty. 50 



In a few rare cases peculiarities fail to be inherited, appa- 

 rently from the force of inheritance being too strong. I 

 have been assured by breeders of the canary-bird that to get 

 a good jonquil-coloured bird it does not answer to pair two 

 jonquils, as the colour then comes out too strong, or is even 

 brown ; but this statement is disputed by other breeders. So 

 again, if two crested canaries are paired, the young birds 

 rarely inherit this character : 51 for in crested birds a narrow 

 space of bare skin is left on the back of the head, where the 

 feathers are up-turned to form the crest, and, when both 

 parents are thus characterised, the bareness becomes exces- 

 sive, and the crest itself fails to be developed. Mr. Hewitt, 

 speaking of Laced Sebright Bantams, says 52 that, " why this 

 should be so I know not, but I am confident that those that 

 are best laced frequently produce offspring very far from 

 perfect in their markings, whilst those exhibited by myself, 

 which have so often proved successful, were bred from the 

 union of heavily-laced birds with those that were scarcely 

 sufficiently laced." 



It is a singular fact that, although several deaf-mutes often 

 occur in the same family, and though their cousins and other 

 relations are often in the same condition, yet their parents are 

 rarely deaf-mutes. To give a single instance : not one scholar 

 out of 148, who were at the same time in the London Institu- 

 tion, was the' child of parents similarly affected. So again, 

 when a male or female deaf-mute marries a sound person, 

 their children are most rarely affected : in Ireland, out of 203 

 children thus produced one alone was mute. Even when 

 both parents have been deaf-mutes, as in the case of forty-one 

 marriages in the United States and of six in Ireland, only 



50 Hofacker, ' Ueber die Eigen- that he believes that these statements 

 Bchaften,' &c, s. 10. are correct. 



51 Bechstein, 'Naturgesch.Deutsch- 52 'The Poultry Book,' by W. B. 

 lands,' b. iv. s. 462. Mr. Brent, a Tegetmeier, 1866, p. 245. 



great breeder of canaries, informs me 



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