Ewarr— Variation: Germinal and Environmental. ole 
Further experiments may, however, show that, by special treatment, the pre- 
potency of even wild rabbits, rats, &e., and also of Zygopetalum and other plants, 
can be reduced, if not for a time destroyed. Highly specialized characters are but 
rarely transmitted to cross-bred offspring. A genius, if a sport, may, like a spotted 
pony, transmit his special traits, even if he unites himself with an alien distin- 
guished only for mediocrity, but this rarely happens. When two richly decorated 
varieties or species are crossed, the special features are often either lost or greatly 
modified, as, for example, when pheasants are intercrossed. A similar result follows 
the crossing of a decorated with a plain or whole coloured variety or species, even 
when the plain form has sprung from richly-coloured ancestors. Evidence of this 
we often have when pheasants and fowls are crossed, and when the zebra is bred. 
with the horse or ass, or a spotted dog is mated with a wolf. 
The pheasant-fowl hybrid may approach the pheasant, but the rich colouring 
is never fully realized, while the zebra seems quite incapable of endowing his 
hybrid offspring with his ight body-colour—or with his own particular pattern of 
stripes. The same, though to a less extent, is true of lion-tiger crosses, and crosses 
between differently coloured fowls, pigeons, rabbits, guinea pigs, &c. The expla- 
nation doubtless is, that the highly specialized traits may have been recently 
acquired (partly owing to environmental stimuli), and may be more of the nature of 
decorations than life-saving characters. This implies that, unless they happen to 
be sports, they will be unstable and only capable of fully reproducing themselves 
if represented by at least a few corresponding vital units in the germ-cell of the 
less specialized parent. 
3. Some of the offspring may resemble one of the parents, some the other. This 
is well illustrated by a litter of four kittens, two of which are pure white, like the 
sire, two are tabby, coloured like the dam. In litters of puppies, both parents are 
often very faithfully reproduced. Recently, in a cross-bred family having a small 
black and tan spaniel as the dam and alemon and white pointer as the sire, there 
were both pointer and spaniel-like pups—one of the former, now clearly double the 
size of his dam, in make and colour closely resembles his sire. 
In a litter of rabbits between a half-bred wild buck and a doe, with faint 
Himalaya markings, one most accurately in make, colour, &¢., copies the doe, 
another is, if anything, more like a wild rabbit than the buck. Other examples 
might be given from amongst sheep and pigs, mice, and pigeons. In these cases the 
germ-cells seem to be so evenly balanced that very little difference in their vigour, 
ripeness, or ‘“ staleness” probably settles the matter one way or the other. But the 
chief interest of the germ-plasm refusing to blend is this, that it gives a new variety 
a chance of establishing itself. A new variety may (1) establish itself if it is 
capable of multiplying more rapidly than the old variety, and is at the same time 
equally well adapted for its surroundings; or (2) if it is better adapted for the 
