1884.] 
Professor Huxley's Darwinism . 61 
unfavourable, to its existence ” (“ Critiques and Addresses,” 
p. 2gg). Yet Prof. Huxley, without specially alluding to 
secondary sexual characters, tells us “now” (1871) Mr. 
Darwin’s “ inclination ” is to admit that such perpetuation of 
variations, under circumstances unfavourable to their existence, 
may occur “ in the teeth of all the opposition ‘ natural 
selection ’ can offer,” as Dr. Mivart expresses it. 
Teratology and Darwinism . 
In i860 Prof. Huxley wrote as follows : — “As a general 
rule, the extent to which an offspring differs from its parent 
is slight enough ; but occasionally the amount of difference 
is much more strongly marked, and then the divergent off- 
spring receives the name of a Variety.” HexadaCtylism and 
Ancon sheep serve to illustrate this. In the first generation 
of the Gratio Kelleia case were two pentadaCtyles, one hexa- 
daCtyle, and one intermediate ; in the second generation 
were six hexadaCtyles, one intermediate, and five plus 
“many” pentadaCtyles; once there occurred three penta- 
daCtyles and one hexadaCtyle, and on this Prof. Huxley 
observes that “ the prepotency of the variety was still more 
markedly exemplified ” than when three hexadaCtyle and 
one pentadaCtyle were born in a family. 
As to Ancon sheep, Mr. S. E. B. Bouverie-Pusey writes 
as follows : — “ Of the other, the ancon, or otter breed, said 
to have originated in Massachusetts in 1791, we know much 
less, as it is now extinCt, and we have apparently only one 
account of it, from a Colonel Humphreys, written in 1819, 
which account we have no means of controlling or verifying. 
I suspeCt that there is some mistake or exaggeration in the 
alleged suddenness of the appearance of this breed, and that 
more time and more selection was really employed than 
appears. We know nothing of the breed of the sheep 
among whom the first ancon lamb was born, but it seems 
{vide Youatt) that the sheep of America were in a highly 
mongrelised state, — a condition* extremely favourable to 
reversion. We have also reason to believe that this form 
has been observed in Europe, and therefore may be consi- 
dered as a race of unknown origin {vide Isidore Geoffroy St. 
Hilaire ‘ Histoire Naturelle ’)” (“ Permanence and Evolu- 
tion,” pp. 51, 52). 
Referring to the Kelleia family, Prof. Huxley remarks that 
* According to Darwin “Animals and Plants under Domestication,” vol ii., 
p. 13, et seq. 
