Appendix II, 203 



If, however, we turn to plants, we find a considerable number 

 of facts which unquestionably demonstrate the only point which 

 this interpretation has been adduced to suggest. For these 

 facts show that, in not a few cases, the germinal matter of 

 pollen-grains is capable of asserting its influence beyond the 

 ovules to the somatic tissues of the ovary, and even to the flower- 

 stalk of the mother plant. Here, then, we have simple and con- 

 clusive evidence of the material of heredity exercising a direct 

 influence on somatic tissues. How this well-known fact is to be 

 met by the theory of germ-plasm is a question which does not 

 seem to have thus far engaged the attention of Professor Weis- 

 mann, or of any of his followers. For particulars touching this 

 phenomenon, so highly important in its relation to the theory 

 of germ-plasm, I cannot do better than refer to the eleventh 

 chapter of Darwin's work on the Si Variation of Animals and 

 Plants under Domestication." 



Again, in the Contemporary Review for May, Mr. Spencer 

 wrote : — 



In the essay to which this is a postscript, conclusions were 

 drawn from the remarkable case of the horse and quagga there 

 narrated, along with an analogous case observed among pigs. 

 These conclusions have since been confirmed. I am much 

 indebted to a distinguished correspondent who has drawn my 

 attention to verifying facts furnished by the offspring of whites 

 and negroes in the United States. Referring to information 

 given him many years ago, he says : — " It was to the effect that 

 the children of white women by a white father had been re- 

 peatedly observed to show traces of black blood, in cases when 

 the woman had previous connexion with [i. e., a child by] a negro." 

 At the time I received this information, an American was 

 visiting me ; and, on being appealed to, answered that in the 

 United States there was an established belief to this effect. 

 Not wishing, however, to depend upon hearsay, I at once wrote 

 to America to make inquiries. Professor Cope of Philadelphia 

 has written to friends in the South, but has not yet sent me the 



is "proved " by the facts, or that the latter "necessitate" the inference 

 as to its being some of the embryo s germinal matter which enters the 

 unripe ova. 



