Chap. 10.] INSTANCES OF BESEMBLANCE. 145 
hrjo only five months old : and again, with another female, 
who, having been delivered of one child at the end of seven 
months, in due course, two months afterwards, brought forth 
twins.^^ 
CHAP. 10. STEIKING INSTANCES OF RESEMBLANCE. 
It is universally known that well-formed parents often pro- 
duce defective children; and on the other hand, defective 
parents children who are well formed, or else imperfect in the 
same part of the body as the parents. It is a well-known fact 
also, that marks, moles, and even scars, are reproduced in mem- 
bers of the same family in successive generations. The mark 
which the Daci make on their arms for the purpose of de- 
noting their origin, is known to last even to the fourth genera- 
tion.^^ 
(12.) We have heard it stated that three members of the 
family of the Lepidi have been born, though not in an unin- 
terrupted succession, with one of the eyes covered with a 
membrane.^^ "We observe, too, that some children strongly re- 
semble their grandfather, and that of twins one child is like the 
father, while the other resembles the mother ; and have known 
cases where a child that was born a year after another, re- 
sembled him as exactly as though they had been twins. Some 
women have children like themselves, some like their husband, 
while others again bear children who resemble neither the 
one nor the other. In some cases the female children resemble 
the father, and the males the niather. The case of Nicseus, 
the celebrated wrestler of Eyzaiitium, is a well-known and un- 
^5 Most of these statements appear to be taken from Aristotle, Hist. 
Anim. — B. 
There has been much discussion respecting the meaning of this pas- 
sage and the fact to which it refers. Aristotle, Hist. Anim., says, that 
marks made on the arm are transmitted for three generations ; and Pliny, 
in B. xxii. c. 2, informs us, that the Daci and the Sarmatse "make 
written marks upon their bodies." The same custom prevails among the 
lower orders, sailors especially, in our own times. We may also remark 
the analogy which it bears to the practice of tattooing, so general among 
the Polynesian and other barbarous nations. — B. 
^7 The reader may be amused by a perusal of the collection of wonder- 
ful cases of this kind, which has been made by Dalechamps ; see Leraaire, 
vol. iii. p, 65, note 4. — B. 
VOL. II. 1 
