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THE CABINET OF NATURAL HISTORY, AND AMERICAN RURAL SPORTS. 
the offspring may not be regarded in the light of a mon- 
strous birth, proceeding from some accidental cause, or 
rather, to speak more philosophically, from some general 
law not yet understood, but which may not be permitted 
permanently to interfere with those laws of generation, 
whereby species may, in general, be prevented from becom- 
ing blended. If, for example, we discovered that the pro- 
geny of a mule race, degenerated greatly in the first ge- 
neration, in force, sagacity, or any attribute necessary 
for its preservation in a state of nature, we might infer, 
that, like a monster, it is a mere temporary and fortuitous 
variety. Nor does it seem probable that the greater num- 
ber of such monsters could ever occur unless obtain- 
ed bv art; for in Hunter’s experiments, stratagem or force 
was, in most instances, employed. 
It seems rarely to happen that the mule offspring is truly 
intermediate in character between the two parents. Thus 
Hunter mentions, that, in his experiments, one of the 
hybrid pups resembled the wolf much more than the rest 
of the litter; and we are informed by Wiegmann, that in 
a litter lately obtained in the Royal Menagerie, at Berlin, 
from a white pointer and a she-wolf, two of the cubs re- 
sembled the common wolf-dog, but the third was like a 
pointer with hanging ears. 
There is, undoubtedly, a very close analogy between 
these phenomena and those presented by the intermixture 
of distinct races of the same species, both in the inferior 
animals and in man. Dr. Prichard, in his “ Physical His- 
tory of Mankind,” cites examples where the peculiarities 
of the parents have been transmitted very unequally to 
the offspring; as where children, entirely white, or per- 
fectly black, have sprung from the union of the European 
and the negro. Sometimes the colour, or other peculiari- 
ties of one parent, after having failed to show themselves 
in the immediate progeny, reappear in a subsequent gene- 
ration; as where a white child is born of two black parents, 
the grandfather having been a white. 
The same author judiciously observes, that if different 
species mixed their breed, and hybrid races were often 
propagated, the animal world would soon present a scene 
of confusion; its tribes would be every where blended to- 
gether, and we should, perhaps, find more hybrid crea- 
tures than genuine and uncorrupted races. 
[Ly ell’s Geology . 
END OF SECOND VOLUME. 
