32 PIGEONS. 



to reproduce itself. Even those slight variations which constitute individual 

 peculiarities are so constantly reproduced, that we look in children for what is 

 termed "the family likeness" to their parents; and where there is any decided 

 departure from the normal type, this has a still stronger tendency to reappear 

 in the progeny of the individual. Among naturalists, this tendency to revert 

 to the ancestral type is termed Atavism, from Atavus, an ancestor. Professor 

 Huxley, in his Lectures on "The Phenomena of Organic Nature," has entered 

 very fully into this subject, and he gives some striking illustrations of the 

 mode in which varieties are established. He states : — 



" One very remarkable case came under Reaumur's notice of a variation in the 

 form of a human member, in the person of a Maltese, of the name of Gratio 

 Kelleia, who was born with six fingers upon each hand, and the like number of 

 toes to each of his feet. That was a case of spontaneous variation. Nobody 

 knows why he was born with that number of fingers and toes, and as we don't 

 know, we call it a case of ' spontaneous ' variation. There is another remarkable 

 case also. I select these, because they happen to have been observed and noted 

 very carefully at the time. It frequently happens that a variation occurs, but the 

 persons who notice it do not take any care in noting down the particulars, until at 

 length, when inquiries come to be made, the exact circumstances are forgotten ; 

 and hence, multitudinous as may be such ' spontaneous ' variations, it is 

 exceedingly difficult to get at the origin of them. 



"The second case is one of which you may find the whole details in the 

 ' Philosophical Transactions ' for the year 1813, in a paper communicated by 

 Colonel Humphrey to the President of the Royal Society, — ' On a New Variety in 

 the Breed of Sheep,' giving an account of a very remarkable breed of sheep, 

 which at one time was well known in the northern states of America, and which 

 went by the name of the Ancon or the Otter breed of sheep. In the year 1791, 

 there was a farmer of the name of Seth Wright in Massachusetts, who had a flock 

 of sheep, consisting of a ram, and, I think, of some twelve or thirteen ewes. Of 

 this flock of ewes, one at the breeding time bore a lamb which was very singularly 

 formed ; it had a very long body, very short legs, and those legs were bowed ! 

 I will tell you by-and-by how this singular variation in the breed of sheep came 

 to be noted, and to have the prominence that it now has. For the present, I 

 mention only these two cases ; but the extent of variation in the breed of anjmals 

 is perfectly obvious to any one who has studied natural history with ordinary 

 attention, or to any person who compares animals with others of the same kind. 



" Now let us go back to Atavism, — to the hereditary tendency I spoke of. What 

 will come of a variation when you breed from it, when Atavism comes, if 1 may 

 say so, to intersect variation '? The two cases of which I have mentioned the 

 history, give a most excellent illustration of what occurs. Gratio Kelleia, the 

 Maltese, married when he was twenty-two years of age, and, as I suppose there 

 were no six-fingered ladies in Malta, he married an ordinary five-fingered person. 

 The result of that marriage was four children ; the first, who was christened 



