16 _-« QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 Joy, 1899. 
union at the central line of the body during the foetid existence of an animal, 
and_ some malformations cannot be accounted for in any way. According to 
the popular belief, fright and similar effects on the mind may cause malfor- 
mations in the foetus of a pregnant female. Some scientists attribute some. of 
such phenomena to reversion, pure and simple ; others to influences the nature 
of which is not clearly understood, and the name of infection or impregnation 
has been given to it. Instances of this kind are too numerous to deny their 
occurrence altogether. 
Of a different kind are the following phenomena :—A brown mare of a race 
where this colour was prevalent, having been covered by a brown entire of the ~ 
same breed, gave birth to a chestnut foal. It was ascertained that the entire 
had only lately covered a chestnut mare, the only one of that colour in the whole 
district. - After the removal altogether of the chestnut mare from the district, the 
brown mare had several brown foalsin succession by the same entire. This instance 
has been quoted as a case where a strong mental impression on the male exercised 
an indirect effect on the female. It is quite as possible, however, that we have 
here a case of reversion pure and simple. Some of the ancestors of either 
the male or female may have been of chestnut colour. 
Tt is also maintained that such and similar effects on the female may be 
lasting. This is said to have been observed in countries wheremules are bred and 
used in preference tohorses. Dr. Miles’s evidence on this head is abundant; it fills 
about fitteen pages of his work, but I shall here be able to give a few instances 
only. Mention is made in the “ Philosophical Transactions” of the year 1821 
of a chestnut mare, sevenscie ath Arabian, belonging to the Earl of Morton, that 
was covered. by a quagga; the hybrid produce resembled the sire in colour and 
in many peculiarities of form. In 1817, 1818, and 1821 the same mare was 
covered by a very fine Arabian horse, and produced successively three foals, and 
although she had not seen the quagga since 1816 they all bore his curious arid 
equivocal markings, 
Jt is stated, on the authority of Mr. William Goodwin, veterinary surgeon 
to Her Majesty, that several of the mares in the Royal stud at Hampton Court 
had foals in one year which were by Acton, but which presented exactly the 
marks of the horse Colonel—a white hind fetlock, for instance, and a white mark 
or stripe on the face; and Acton was perfectly free from white. The mares 
had. all bred from Colonel the previous year. 
Alexander Morrison, Esq., of Bognie, United States, had a fine Clydesdale 
mare which, in 1848, was served by a Spanish ass and produced a mule. 
She afterwards had a colt by a horse, which colt bore a very marked likeness 
to a mule. Seen at a distance, everyone set it down at once asa mule. The 
ears are 94 inches long, the girth not quite 6 feet, and he stands above 16 hands 
high. The hoofs are so long and narrow that there is a difficulty in shoein 
them, and the tail is thin and scanty. He is a beast of indominable energy an 
durability, and is highly prized by his owner. 
Rueff says:—“ As a horse-fancier I have taken special notice of such facts as 
they have come under my notice in my journeys through Piedmont, Upper Italy, 
and the South of France. Mares that have been covered by donkeys auntie 
produce, even when coyered by a horse, offspring that so strongly resemble 
mules that they may easily be taken for such. ‘The celebrated painter, Professor 
‘Wagner, noticed the same whilst travelling through Spain.” 
A German sheep-breeder, Mr. Rimpau, had 15 merino ewes covered by 
a Southdown ram; the offspring showed the grey heads and extremities of the 
Southdown ram. Later on the same ewes were covered by a Rambouillet ram; 
the result was that 12 out of 15 of those ewes produced lambs which were 
marked in a similar manner as the half-bred Southdowns—their mothers. 
Scientists have tried to explain these cases, as I said before, firstly, by a strong 
mental effect which the male exercises on the female; secondly, by a possible 
migration of the spermatozoa or seed animalcula into the ovary ; or, thirdly, by 
the intermixture of the blood of the foetus with that of the mother during 
gestation. With regard to the first explanation it may be said to be possible; 
