192 An Examination of Weismannism. 



in the museum of the College of Surgeons, in the shape oi 

 paintings of a foal borne by a mare not quite thoroughbred, 

 to a sire which was thoroughbred— a foal which bears the 

 markings of the quagga. The history of this remarkable foal 

 is given by the Earl of Morton, F.R.S., in a letter to the Presi- 

 dent of the Royal Society (read November 23, 1820). In it he 

 states that wishing to domesticate the quagga, and having 

 obtained a male, but not a female, he made an experiment. 



I tried to breed from the male quagga and a young chestnut mare of 

 seven-eighths Arabian blood, and which had never been bred from ; the 

 result was the production of a female hybrid, now five years old, and 

 bearing, both in her form and in her colour, very decided indications of 

 her mixed origin. I subsequently parted with the seven-eighths Arabian 

 mare to Sir Gore Ouseley. who has bred from her by a veiy fine black 

 Arabian horse. I yesterday morning examined the produce, namely, 

 a two-year-old filly and a year-old colt, They have the character of the 

 Arabian breed as decidedly as can be expected, where fifteen-sixteenths 

 of the blood are Arabian; and they are fine specimens of that breed; 

 but both in their colour and in the hair of their manes they have 

 a striking resemblance to the quagga. Their colour is bay, marked 

 more or less like the quagga in a darker tint. Both are distinguished 

 by the dark line along the ridge of the back, the dark stripes across the 

 fore-hand, and the dark bars across the back part of the legs 1 . 



Lord Morton then names sundry further correspondences. 

 Dr. Wollaston, at that time President of the Royal Society, 

 who had seen the animals, testified to the correctness of his 

 description, and, as shown by his remarks, entertained no 

 doubt about the alleged facts. But good reason for doubt 

 may be assigned. There naturally arises the question — How 

 does it happen that parallel results are not observed in other 

 cases ? If in any progeny certain traits not belonging to the 

 sire, but belonging to a sire of preceding progeny, are re- 

 produced, how is it that such anomalously-inherited traits are 

 not observed in domestic animals, and indeed in mankind ? 

 How is it that the children of a widow by a second husband do 

 not bear traceable resemblances of the first husband ? To these 

 questions nothing like satisfactory replies seem forthcoming ; 



1 ' Pnilosophical Transactions of the Royal Society for the Year 182 1,' 

 Part I. pp, 20-24. 



