6 
THE INFLUENCE OF MATERNAL IMPRESSIONS 
ON THE OFFSPRING. A QUERY. 
HAVE long thought that the readers of Nature Notes 
and their friends could well render a solid service to 
science by devoting their attention to a point which 
has been hitherto overlooked by writers on Evolution ; 
or, at any rate, has by no means received the recognition which, 
I believe, its importance in relation to that theory reasonably 
demands. 
The influence of maternal impressions, chiefly visual, upon 
the physical and other characteristics of the offspring has, so far 
as I am aware, received scant attention from the disciples of 
Darwin. Yet I venture to conjecture that it exercises enormous 
force, and that, carefully observed in detail by numerous intelli- 
gent observers, it will be found one of the most important factors 
in Natural Selection. I can here only sketch what I mean in 
outline, leaving others to fill in the extensive blank. 
It is fashionable nowadays to scout the more extraordinary 
and exceptional manifestations of the principle. On the other 
hand, one cannot help noticing as remarkable a popular belief in 
its efficacy current at a relatively early age of the world. I refer 
to Jacob’s experiments on Laban’s cattle, recorded in Genesis 
xxx. 37 et seq. 
We have to consider the question here from two aspects : 
(a) the extraordinary and exceptional, as affecting monstrosities ; 
(b) the comparatively trivial, common, and routine manifesta- 
tions. It is the latter on which I would comment, as most con- 
cerning the readers of Nature Notes. Moreover, these are, in 
the end, of enormously greater significance than the striking and 
often startling cases which come under the former heading, and 
which, also, mostly concern the human species — a subject, pro- 
bably, beyond the scope of these pages. 
Therefore, the first category may be dismissed with a few 
brief remarks. Some years since the “ elephant man ” was kept 
secluded at a London hospital. His mother had been (at least, 
so it was stated) frightened before his birth by an elephant in a 
circus. It was impossible to allow him out by day, in conse- 
quence of the most ghastly deformity that the mind can conceive: 
huge, misshapen arms and legs, a prominent snout, &c. He is 
happily now dead. 
I myself knew a sturdy young lady who was bitten by a 
littl e dog about four months after marriage. A very fine, 
healthy little boy, with a withered arm, was the result. In 
another instance I noticed a round, pale yellow area upon a 
child’s head. The mother explained that, under certain circum- 
stances, she went into a room with the table laid out for a dinner- 
party. Among the rest was a dish of apricots. She had an 
inordinate craving for this fruit. They offered her everything 
