1831 .] 
On Varieties in the Animal Kingdom. 
83 
The faculty of procreating bastards is not confined solely to the neighbouring 
species of those animals, in which fecundation takes place in the interior of the 
female, but we find it also in animals in which, as in fishes, the semen is poured 
upon the ova, after they have issued from the female. Many species of carp are 
produced in this way. 
The extreme resemblance between most of the Tritons, renders it very probable, 
that many of the species are capable of mutual copulation. 
2dly. — Bastards are more numerous, and at the same time more prolific, in the 
lower than in the higher animals, because, no doubt, the organic power is, in 
the former, more strictly confined to the phenomena of formation, and on that 
account more energetic. To this cause must be attributed the greater frequency 
of bastardy in birds than in the mammalia. All these circumstances tend to 
substantiate the opinion expressed above, that a great number of species of 
insects are thus produced. 
3dly. — Bastards are more readily generated, and are more prolific, in proportion 
as their progenitors themselves possess great powers of procreation. To this 
circumstance we attribute the different degrees of fertility in hybrid birds, and 
hybrid mammals, as well as those by which bastards of the genus Canis and 
genus Equus , are so variously characterized. 
4thly. — The degree of resemblance is, beyond all doubt, another cause of 
the want of equality in the faculty of begetting bastards. The greater the resem- 
blance between the species, and the more gradual the passage from ore to the 
other, the more readily are these hybrid beings produced, and the more power- 
fully are they endowed with the reproductive faculty. 
5thly. — According to Buffon, bastards are more frequently males than females. 
If this be true, it would seem contradictory of the explanation above given, of the 
circumstance of female bastards being prolific and males barren ; a contradiction, 
■which is, however, reconciled by the remark cited by Buffon, as an example of 
animals much more prolific, such as the dog and wolf, the lie-goat and sheep, 
and the goldfinch and canary bird. This, however, is but an apparent contradiction j 
for though the form of the genital parts be more elevated in males, inasmuch as 
they exceed tire degree of organization at which the female genital organs stop, the 
formative power is, nevertheless, more active in the female, and the smaller num- 
ber of female bastards appears, consequently, to prove that they are produced 
under circumstances less favorable than those which attend the birth of regular 
animals. 
(ithly. — Do bastards present any characteristic signs of their mixed origin, and, if 
go, what are those signs ? 
From certain experiments, by Buffon, upon the production of bastards between 
the he-goat and sheep, in which the offspring had greater resemblance to the 
former, we should be inclined to believe, that the form depends, in a great mea- 
sure, on the male. This is positively admitted by Linnaeus, with respect to the out- 
ward form at least ; but so little is at present known upon the subject, that nothing 
can be laid down with certainty. 
Thus, the hinnus, the progeny of a stallion and a she-ass, resembles the latter 
more in its slender neck, dorsal stripe, as well as in the form ot its hind quarters, 
whilst the mule, bred between a mare and male-ass, receives from the former 
the strength of hoof, rounded form of body, and the size, beauty, and strength 
of its posterior parts. The hinnus is small, the mule large. In one case 
the bastard of a dog and wolf, had more the form of the male than of the 
