On Cross Breeding. 
295 
one half of the body. Thus the back, loins, hind-quarters, general 
shape, skin, and size, follow one parent ; and the fore-quarters, 
head, vital and nervous system, the other : and we may go so far 
as to add, that the former in the great majority of cases go with 
the male parent, and the latter with the female. A corroboration 
of this fact is found in the common system of putting an ordinary 
mare to a thorough-bred horse ; not only does the head of the 
offspring resemble the dam, but the forelegs likewise, and 
thus it is fortunately the case that the too-frequently faulty and 
tottering legs of the sire are not reproduced in the foal, whilst 
the full thighs and hind quarters which belong to the blood- 
horse are generally given to the offspring. There is, how- 
ever, a minority of cases in which the opposite result obtains. 
That size is governed more by the male parent, there is no great 
difficulty in showing ; — familiar examples maybe found in the 
offspring of the pony-mare and the full-sized horse, which con- 
siderably exceed the dam in size. Again, in the first cross 
between the small indigenous ewe and the large ram of another 
improved breed — the offspring is found to approach in size and 
shape very much to the ram. The mule offspring of the mare also 
very much resembles both in size and appearance its donkey sire. 
These are familiar examples of the preponderating influence of 
the male parent, so far as the external form is considered. To 
show, however, that size and height do not invariably follow the 
male, we need go no further for illustration than tb.e human subject. 
How often do we find that in the by no means infrequent case of 
the union of a tall man with a short woman, the result in some 
instances is that all the children are tall and in others all short, or 
sometimes that some of the family are short and others tall. 
Within our own knowledge, in one case, where the father was 
tall and the mother short, the children, six in number, are all 
tall. In another instance, the father being short and the mother 
tall, the children, seven in number, are all of lofty stature. 
In a third instance, the mother being tall and the father short, 
the greater portion of the family are short. Such facts as 
these are sufficient to prove that height or growth does not 
exclusively follow either the one parent or the other. Although 
this is the case, it is also a striking fact that the union of tall and 
short parents rarely, if ever, produces offspring of a medium size — 
midway, as it were, between the two parents. Thus, in the 
breeding of animals, if the object be to modify certain defects, by 
using a male or female in which such defects may not exist, we 
cannot produce this desired alteration ; or rather, it cannot be 
equally produced in all the offspring, but can only be attained by 
weeding out those in whom the objectionable points are repeated. 
