Influence of Imagination on the Female. 13 , 
sufficient vigour to complete the process successfully. The number of cases where such experiments 
have been made as we have quoted, in which part of the eggs produced showed signs of hatching, 
but did not hatch, is proportionately very great, and the conclusion will not be lost on the intelligent 
breeder. But still further, and coming back to the considerations with which we commenced this 
pait of the subject, it is utteily impossible to resist the conclusion that, beyond fertilisation, the act 
of union exeits, in many cases, a more mysterious and far-reaching influence. Mr. Darwin enters 
at some length into this subject, and attempts to explain it by his theory of Pangenesis, in a way 
which seems to us eminently unsatisfactory ; but the fact remains — proved beyond the possibility 
of doubt that again and again hens of different breeds and female animals of various kinds, after 
the birth of half-bred offspring, have ever afterwards manifested a plainly evident tendency 
to produce offspring bearing more or less strong traces of the same character. This tendency 
greatly varies, and cannot therefore be calculated ; but it exists, and tends to show that a given 
chick may in a certain mythical sense have two fathers, or rather that the progeny of one bird is 
in some mysterious way modified by the previous union with another. The most probable explan- 
ation is, that as habit is the developed tendency to do again what has been already done, so the 
female reproductive system having once given birth to offspring having a strongly-marked character, 
becomes in a degree moulded to that character, and tends again to produce it. At all events the 
teaching of this fact is plain, and we would never, on any account, allow any valued hens to mate 
with another breed. We have known ourselves several cases in which hens once crossed have 
reproduced strong cases of that cross tzvo years afterwards, and many otherwise unaccountable 
occurrences which have given rise to bitter recriminations, may be thus very easily explained. 
There is yet another precaution of this kind to be taken, which may indeed be possibly 
connected with the foregoing. We have seen the statement of it by others ignorantly ridiculed by 
men who have had little experience of their own ; but the experience of every year impresses on 
us the desirability of avoiding anything which may act strongly on the imagination or sight of the 
hen. A few facts will make this clear. A great American breeder had some Light Brahma hens 
running with Spanish, the cocks being Spanish only ; and as long as these white hens were 
allowed, the Spanish chickens came with many white feathers, which ceased when the Biahmas 
were removed. Another gentleman put a single-combed hen into a pen of Cievecoeurs . the 
next clutch of chicks varied much in colour, several had single combs, and most were woithless, 
but after the strange hen was removed they were all right. A well-known English breeder very 
frequently, but not invariably, found that whenever he put black hens with his white Cochins, he 
got many chicks with black splashes, which ceased when they were removed, bor this last case we 
can personally vouch ; and in our own yard, breeding as we have frequently done from a hocked 
cock to compensate want of feather, we have always found that cutting off the vulture-hock 
diminished the number of hocked chickens at least 30 per cent. This influence, no doubt, gieatly 
varies-in some cases no sign of it can be discovered, whilst in others it is very evident-but it 
should always be kept in view and guarded against. Mr. Martin’s preference, as expressed in the 
chapter on Dorkings, for hatching his eggs under properly-coloured hens, will also be noticed as 
the experience of an old breeder ; and, indeed, we have hardly known one such who did not attach 
some importance to this point in breeding. 
It has long been found from experience that the hen has most influence upon the form, 
size, and general economic or constitutional qualities of her progeny, whilst that of the cock more 
predominates as regards the “fancy” points. In other words, the hen chiefly influences the chicken 
from the skin inwards, whilst the cock more determines the feathering; or still again, as an artist 
friend expressed it, “the hen blocks in the picture, while the cock puts the finishing touches. That 
