EDITORIAL. 
879 
nectiotis may have taken place, and cases where impurity of the 
breed, atavism, and surrounding causes only may have inter¬ 
vened. The question has already received ample attention at 
the hands of many scientists—Chauveau, Sanson, St. Yres, 
Menard, and others—and, yet, notwithstanding the negative re¬ 
sults which were brought out from their experiments and ob¬ 
servations, the idea still remains among some breeders, but 
probably more among those of dogs, that a pure-blooded animal, 
impregnated once by a male of lower standing—a pure hound 
with a mongrel, for instance,—after generations with a thor¬ 
oughbred male, will give products with some of the characters 
of the mongrel. For many dog-breeders this doctrine of im¬ 
pregnation has many advocates, and many among them are 
much disappointed when the first pregnancy of a well-bred bitch 
is the result of a connection with a common' dog ; they fear that 
ulterior products, although the result of a perfectly selected 
accomplement, may bring forth young ones resembling the first 
male. 
To add to the list, already long, of evidences of the fallacy 
of this opinion, the eminent professor of zootechny at the Vet¬ 
erinary School of Bruxelles related, in the Annales de Mede- 
cine Veterinaire , published by that school, Mr. Ad. Reul, relates 
an experiment which he has made. A red sow of Tamworth 
breed was covered by a boar of her race. She had a litter of 
young ones of her red color. Several months later, from want 
of a boar of her breed, she received the services of a white 
Yorkshire boar, also thoroughbred. This second litter con¬ 
sisted of a dozen pigs, very strong, and all as snow white as 
their father, a few of them only having a few spots, particu¬ 
larly on their ears, slightly tinted, but these passed away after 
awhile. Therefore, this sow, with her Irish-setter color, had 
given by this second union a litter of young ones as white as 
their father, with some of the characters belonging to his breed. 
She, therefore, had not been influenced in her second litter by 
her first connection, although the male then had been one of 
her breed. Furthermore, a third time the sow was covered, 
