100 
ANIMAL PEDIGREES. 
May, 1891. 
which takes, as noted above, the form of an inverted, not an 
erect, tree. If we allow three generations to a century there 
will have been twenty-five generations between the Norman 
Invasion and the present time : so that a man now living 
may be descended not merely from one ancestor who came over 
to England in 1066, but directly and equally from over sixteen 
million ancestors who lived at or about that date. I say 
u may be descended” advisedly; for unless we assume that 
many of these ancestors were identical individuals, we shall 
find that the existence of a single man to-day involves the 
existence, a thousand years ago, of over a thousand millions 
of ancestors ; and at the commencement of the Christian 
era of nearly seventy thousand millions of millions of ances¬ 
tors ; a state of things which would involve serious recon¬ 
sideration of the dimensions of the earth. 
Genealogical trees, such as I have described, we are all 
familiar with. Furthermore, we know that the principles 
employed in constructing them are not confined to Smith and 
Jones and the kings and queens of England, but apply to 
the lower animals as well. The pedigrees of racehorses, and 
of other artificially bred animals, such as cattle, sheep, pigs, 
dogs, pigeons, poultry, etc., have for many years past been 
kept with the most scrupulous care ; and there are men 
who could tell you in detail the pedigree of the winner 
of last year’s Derby or Leger, who would be sorely perplexed 
if asked for their own, and would perhaps prefer that the 
results of researches on this point should not be made too 
public. 
We all recognise that the cats and rabbits and dogs of to-day 
did not come into existence spontaneously, but are descended 
from the cats, rabbits, and dogs of preceding generations, 
decades, or centuries ; and that the same applies to birds, to 
butterflies, to sea anemones, or to any other animals we like 
to think of. 
We have now merely to enlarge our sphere of action, to 
widen our boundaries with regard to such genealogies, and 
we find ourselves face to face with the great problem with 
which naturalists are confronted, and which they are attack¬ 
ing on every side and by all means in their power. 
We recognise that Diagram A represents correctly the 
relation between man and man: and we admit that it is 
equally true when applied to horses, to cows, to dogs, or to 
canaries. In other words, we acknowledge that the 
principle on which the diagram is constructed is true in 
all cases in which historical or documentary evidence is 
forthcoming. 
