96 HEREDITY [ch. 



haviour of germinal characters makes it improbable 

 that it can be a factor of great importance in the 

 constitution of the individual, or to the course of 

 evolution. Some further evidence in this direction 

 will be given in the next chapter. 



A few minor questions remain. One of these, 

 which has played a considerable part in biological 

 literature, is the alleged phenomenon called Telegony. 

 It was formerly believed, and the belief is still firmly 

 held by fanciers and animal breeders, that if a female 

 of one breed bears young by a male of another breed, 

 and is then mated with a male of her own kind, the 

 offspring of this second mating will in some cases 

 show the influence of the first sire, and instead of 

 being pure-bred will in some respects be mongrels 

 resembling the mongrel offspring of the first mating. 

 The instance of this made classical by Darwin is 

 ' Lord Morton's Mare,' in which a chestnut mare bore 

 a colt by a quagga, and afterwards two colts by a 

 black Arab stallion, both of which were dun-coloured, 

 and bore stripes on the legs and in one colt on the 

 neck also [7]. But it is known that dun horses are 

 frequently striped to some extent, and Ewart's 

 well-known work with zebras [11], in which it was 

 attempted to repeat this experiment, gave negative 

 results. The belief in telegony is widely held among 

 dog-fanciers, and many cases could be quoted, but 

 whenever properly controlled experiments have been 



