PEDIGREE-ÖRÖKLÉS. 
408 
vennék (Budapest, Magyar Nemzeti Muzeum) bárki részéről minden ide¬ 
vonatkozó közlést, akár egyezik, akár ellenkezik a fennebbiekben előadott 
fejtegetéseimmel. 
* 
I made hereditary experiments extended over different groups of 
mammals and birds ; I used partly wild and partly domestic animals ; 
and, with a view to determining the exact measure of variation, as far as 
possible, I chose, in the case of domestic breeds, pedigree specimens which 
came near the Standards laid down for the different breeds. I intend, in 
the present paper, to sum up the principal conclusions, based on the general 
results of my experiments ; I shall put off, to a future occasion, the minute 
details of the experiments themselves. 
«Breeding is a Lottery»: Without perverting its meaning, this old 
established and generally used proverb of the breeders, can be modified 
and employed in explaining the seemingly wonderful, or, at least infinitely 
complicated, problem of Heredity in the following form : «Inheritance 
is the Series of the Chance’s of Probability.» No 
scientific definition could compare to the clearness and exactness of this 
proposition, nor could approach the real facts. Leading breeders know 
very well how to confine the caprices of fortune within the narrowest pos¬ 
sible limits, or, in other words, how to exchange them with the chances 
of probability, which can be anticipated. 1 Knowledge of the most succesful 
methods of breeding would be an invaluable gain to science also. 
Galton’s Law of Ancestral Inheritance considers the individuum 
as a unit, as a quadrate, in which all its predecessors — all the generations 
of its predecessors — are absorbed, and its two parents contribute be¬ 
tween them ; on the average, one half of the total heritage (one quarter each) : 
the four grandparents, one quarter (one sixteenth each) ; the eight great- 
grandparents, one eighth (one sixty-fourth each), and so on to the com- 
1 Mr. Francis Redmond, who can be regarded as the founder of the modern Show 
Fox-Terrier, and whose successes in breeding,exhibiting and judging through half a century 
are unrivalled, writes me in his letter dated Whetstone House, Totteridge, N., August 16, 
’13, as follows : «... X was very gratified to hear of the success your breeding had met with 
at the shows, the more so, when I noted they were the progeny of Dusky Diver and Bostock 
Rona and Duke Michael,as I am convinced, that, if bred with judgement, from good stock, 
success is almost certain, and I find no difficulty in breeding at least one good winner in 
every litter, this, by taking the average, is a moderate estimate.» etc. 
