458 
Heredity and Sexuality. 
may be preserved. An example is afforded in the Dutch cattle 
imported into Alsace, which, in the fourth generation, had, excepting 
in colour, quite assumed the conformation of the native cattle, 
though it is alleged that no admixture of native blood had taken 
place. Illustrations of rapidly effected changes are afforded in the 
circumstance that Vilmorin, in four consecutive generations, obtained 
the cultivated from the wild carrot ; Flourens, also in four genera- 
tions, obtained a perfect dog from a cross between a she-wolf and a 
dog. Vilmorin has demonstrated that the parental influence, or, as 
he terms it, the immediate influence, is stronger than all others. 
From a hairy lupin (Lupinus hir&utus), bearing blue and red inflor- 
escences, he selected a branch with only blue flowers, by cultivation 
from which the red flowers became fewer and finally disappeared. 
The result of crossing a common mare with a half-bred or pure* 
bred horse is discussed. She may be a good mare, excellent for 
draught purposes, equal to her work, free from maladies and 
vices, and standing a less height than the stallion. The latter, a 
half-bred perhaps, has a fairly noble carriage, but the head a little 
heavy, the neck too short, the shoulders insufficiently sloping, the 
arms too small, the elbows contracted. The forelegs are well devel- 
oped, the knees wide enough but wanting in length, and the fetlocks 
cover some deficiency of bony substance, though the general structure 
of the foot is satisfactory. There are some defects in the hind quarters, 
but the hind limbs as a whole will bear scrutiny. What will be the 
offspring of such a cross ? Usually the head will be too bold, the 
eye small, the neck without distinctive feature, the limbs slender, 
the knees small, the tendons slighter than in either sire or dam, the 
fetlock bad, the pastern bone too fine, the inferior size of the hoofs 
will recall those of the pure-bred grandsire, and, moreover, the off- 
spring is not likely to be good-tempered. By the second or third 
generation, under the influence of care and good nourishment, many 
of the defects will, however, have disappeared. 
Passing to the examination of various parts of the body in farm 
animals, M. Kiener states that he has often seen, in crosses between 
Dutch cattle and shorthorns, the design of the coat to correspond 
with that of the one breed, and the coloration with that of the other. 
The shorthorn Dutch cross-bred has sometimes the pattern of the 
coat of the shorthorn sire with the black colouring of the Dutch 
dam. As regards size, it is inexpedient to mate together large sires 
and small dams, whilst it is beyond question that the use of small 
sires upon larger dams, as in the case of Arab stallions and French 
mares, or of Asiatic boars and French sows, has yielded excellent 
results. The head is chosen by systematists as the main guide to 
classification of species of the same genus, and from its characters 
are deduced those of the entire skeleton ; but, however reliable this 
may be in the case of a pure breed, it is decidedly misleading in the 
case of cross-breds. 
Many examples are quoted tending to show that neither of 1 1 1 • • 
parents enjoys a monopoly in the transmission of characters. In 
other words, the offspring may derive its peculiarities from either 
