Ewart— Variation : Germinal and Environmental. 365 
semi-torpid condition. As their dam neither attempted to protect nor suckle them, 
they all died during the first day, and were added to my museum. ‘This peculiar 
behaviour of the doe led me to surmise that something unusual might happen. I 
find I wrote in the stud book on the 7th October :—‘‘ Will this grey doe have 
another lot of young about the 16th October.” On the 11th October the doe 
proceeded to make a nest, but before the lining of hair was added, three more 
young were born, exactly a week after the first lot, ¢.2. on the 14th of October. 
They were slightly smaller than the first litter, and, like the first, they soon 
died, their dam never attempting to suckle them. ‘The chief point of interest 
about the last batch of young is, that they varied in colour; had they survived, 
one would have been white, one probably blue or silver grey, and one like a 
wild rabbit. 
When this grey doe had sufficiently recovered her equilibrium, she was again 
put to the Angora buck, and on the 27th December she had six young, two white 
-——identical with the two white of her first litter—and four grey, two of them with 
patches of white. 
Service was again postponed, with the result that this grey doe a second time 
produced to the Angora buck grey young like herself. In further support of the 
view that, when the sperms are introduced some time before ovulation, the young 
are likely to take after the buck, I may mention, that in the case of a white rabbit 
served by a grey half-wild buck thirty-eight days before she littered, the offspring 
exactly resembled the buck—served by the same buck at the normal time, the 
offspring were of various colours. 
From these and other experiments it appears—(1) that when a doe rabbit is 
served one or more days before the normal time, the young resemble the buck ; 
(2) that when insemination is delayed, the young are likely to resemble the 
doe; and (8) that when insemination takes place at the usual time, some of the 
young take after the doe, some after the buck, while others may differ from both 
parents and resemble some of the less remote ancestors; and (4) that in the 
rabbit spermatozoa retain their potency several days after they reach the fallopian 
tube. 
In support of the view that the members of the first litter of the grey doe were 
white like the sire, while the third litter consisted of dark young like the dam and 
her half-wild sire, the extremely important results obtained by Mr. H. M. Vernon 
with echinoderms may be cited. It will be remembered that Vernon, on crossing 
Spherechinus females with Strongylocentrotus males, found that, in summer, 
when Strongylocentrotus have but small quantities of ripe sexual products, the 
majority of the hybrids ‘‘ were of an almost pure Spheerechinus type, only a third 
or less of them being of an intermediate or Strongylocentrotus type,” but that, 
‘as the maturity of the Strongylocentrotus sperm icreases, it is able to transmute first 
