HEREDITARY INFLUENCE. 687 
an evidence that the “ vital organs ” are not solely given by 
the female. 
The result of Mr. Ortoffis researches proves that the male 
does transmit his qualities to his descendants ; as a matter of 
fact this must be always distinctly remembered ; but neither 
his researches nor those of his predecessors suffice to prove 
this transmission to be absolute , in the sense required by 
those who maintain that the male gives the animal and the 
female the vegetative organs ; as well as by those who main- 
tain that the male influence necessarily and invariably 
predominates in the animal, the female in the vegetative 
organs. Still it is important to know that by the pollen of 
flowers we can modify the tints, and produce any varieties of 
tulip, violet, or dahlia; important to know that we can also 
modify the plumage of birds, and the colour of animals : it is 
important to know that the male qualities are transmissible. 
But for scientific rigour this is not enough. Before we can 
establish a law of this kind, we must be sure that the fact is 
constant and admits of no exceptions, or only of such 
apparent exceptions as may be classed under unexplained 
perturbations. Now daily observations, no less than re- 
corded cases, assure us that the law is very far from being 
constant, that the female as unmistakeably transmits her 
qualities as the male transmits his, and that any theorist who 
should reverse the current theory and declare the mother 
bestowed the animal system, leaving the vegetative to the 
father, would be able to make a formidable array of facts. 
Let us glance awhile at the evidence. 
It is said that the male gives the colour, but the female 
does so likewise. A black cat and a white cat will have 
kittens which may be all black, all white, or black spotted 
with white, and white spotted with black. Every street will 
furnish examples. Isidore Geoffroy St. Hilaire speaks of a 
case under his observation, of a black buck and a white doe ; 
the first produce was a black and white fawn ; the second a 
fawn entirely black, except a white spot above the hoof.* 
Burdach mentions the case of a raven and a gray crow, w’ho 
had a brood of five : tw 7 o black like the father ; two gray like 
the mother ; and one mixed. The same result is observed 
with respect to all other qualities. But perhaps the most 
decisive example we could quote of the twofold influence 
of parents is in the singular instance recorded by Buffon. 
The Marquis Spontin Beaufort had a she-wolf living in his 
stables with a setter dog, by whom she had two cubs, a male 
and a female. The male resembled externally his father, 
* ‘Diet. Classique d’Histoire Naturelle/ x, 121. 
