418 
Di D. FÉNYES 
of in-breeding, and the changing of the natural conditions promotes the 
chances of cross-breeding. The statements made here, cannot be regarded, 
however, as definitions of general value, just for this reason, that the 
meanings of in-breeding and cross-breeding gradually pass into each other. 
I n-b reeding generally produces similar offspring, 
when uniformity is greatest and variation least; 
the eros s-b reeding be tween close relations result 
in an already smaller, but still essential uni¬ 
formity, which is nothing else than the dominance 
of the common ancestor — the atavism or re¬ 
version — and the variation is consequently 
greater; the cross between distant relations, 
finally, results in a wide-spread variation, in 
consequence of which, the uniformity, i. e., the 
dominance of the common ancestor, the reversion, 
is narrowly limited. I n-b reeding and uniformity, 
on the one hand, and eros s-b reeding a n d v a r i a t i o n, 
on the other, are series of gradations of causes 
and their effects. When cross-breeding is followed by in-breeding, 
the characters of the, eventually intermediate, variants become fixed, 
and, by employing selection, they can deviate from the average, i. e, new 
breeds will be formed. 
The proposition of the «Pedigree Inheritance» is, in the writer’s humble 
opinion, capable of interpreting the prepotency which phaenomenon 
was always a matter of dispute, though generally accepted by the scien¬ 
tists and breeders. It is a fact of experience, that, generally, the greater 
the in-breeding to which a certain individual can be traced, the greater 
will be the certainty that it will reproduce its properties in its offspring, 
or, when it is mated with another individual, to which it is not related, 
and which is not in-bred, it impresses its own stamp on the produce to a 
far greater degree, than its pair. The natural cause of this fact lies in this 
practical probability, that the ancestors of the in-bred individual had, 
to a great extent, similar, and these of the non in-bred one, different, pro¬ 
perties, and consequently, when they are mated, the preponderance of the 
similar properties comes out and predominates over the differents. 
The variations are nowadays, from the standpoint of heredity, gene¬ 
rally devided into two groups, one of which includes the modifications 
or somations, i.e., such properties, as vary independently from the gametes, 
which are, consequently, not inherited, and the other is made up of the 
mutations or blastovariations, namely, the variations depending on the 
gametes, which, of course, are hereditary. These distinctions are of little 
