668 
HEREDITARY INFLUENCE. 
the dog, except that his ears were pointed and his tail like 
that of the wolf; the female, on the contrary, resembled her 
mother, the wolf, in all external characteristics except the 
tail, which was the same as her father’s. Here in one case, 
the father gave the external characteristics, in the other the 
mother, while the tail was in each case, as it were, trans- 
posed. But the marvel of this case does not stop here : the 
cubs manifested a striking difference in disposition, in each 
case resembling in character the parent it did not resemble in 
appearance and in sex ; thus the male cub, which had all the 
appearance of a dog, w r as fierce and untameable as the wolf; 
the female cub, which had all the appearance of a wolf, was 
familiar, gentle, and caressing even to importunity. Lucas 
records an analogous case. These hybrids are very instructive, 
because the wide differences in the aspect and nature of the 
parents enable us to separate, as it were, the influence of 
each. The wolf and the dog often breed together; and the 
following observations, interesting in themselves, will suffice 
to show the reader how much caution is necessary before 
drawing absolute conclusions from single illustrations. 
Yalmont Bomare observed in the various hybrids of wolf and 
dog which came under his notice at Chantilly, a striking 
preponderance of the wolf over the dog ; Marsch, on the 
contrary, observed in his experience a preponderance of the 
dog over the wolf; Geoffroy St. Hilaire and Pallas found the 
wolf to predominate ; whereas, Marolle found the cubs 
remarkable for their gentleness and dog-like instincts, only 
recalling the wolf in their voracity and fondness for flesh. 
Girou found the preponderance to vary; sometimes the 
father, sometimes the mother re-appeared in the offspring. 
If there were no other evidence, this would suffice to disprove 
the hypothesis of either parent contributing one group of 
organs, to the absolute exclusion of the other parent. 
The same fact of twofold influence is shown in the 
transmission of deformities, such as extra toes, extra fingers, 
&c. ; sometimes the male, and sometimes the female is 
shown to preponderate, by the offspring inheriting the 
deformity of the male or the female. It is well said by 
Girou,* that “if the organization of the male was the only 
one which passed to the child, the child would resemble 
the father, as the fruit of a graft resembles the tree from 
which the graft was taken, and not at all the tree on which 
it was grafted.” And what is here said of the whole orga- 
nization, applies w 7 ith equal force to any one system, such 
as the nervous or the nutritive. 
* ‘De la Generation/ p. 113. 
