Ewart— Variation: Germinal and Environmental. 375 
though the crossing of two very distinct human races often leads to disastrous 
results, intermarriage between members of some of the higher branches of the 
human family may prove highly beneficial—that, in fact, there may be progress, 
mental as well as physical, without the transmission, so long thought necessary, 
of definite traits acquired by the nervous, muscular or other systems during the 
individual lifetime. 
As the combining of two sets of characters in the offspring is probably 
comparatively rare, it may be taken for granted that it is only possible when the 
environment is particularly favourable—whien the food is plentiful, the assimilation 
perfect, the germ-cells well nourished and about equally prepotent, and all the 
climatic conditions are pre-eminently suitable. 
5. Sometimes new, or at least unexpected, characters appear in the offspring. 
The grey tailless rabbit was an example of an unexpected character which was 
certainly not due to reversion—though there may have been tailless rabbits before. 
Though this is a congenital variation, it is not necessarily a germinal one. In 
two rabbits that died a few hours after birth, the tail was represented by a 
shrivelled process about the thickness of a bristle—evidently the tail, normal 
enough in the young embryo, had atrophied during development. If the tendency 
to atrophy is inherited, the variation would belong to the germinal and not to the 
environmental group. 
One of the many kinds of tame mice is a Japanese variety that, whenever it 
moves, tends to spin round. Last November, I noticed that three out of four of 
a litter of twenty-one days old rabbits, frequently spun round at a great rate. 
When on the way to their food they would suddenly begin to wheel like a dog 
after its tail, sometimes from right to left, sometimes from left to right, and they 
always spin round when disturbed.* ‘The sire of the spinners isa half-wild rabbit, 
the dam an Angora-Himalaya. The fourth member of the litter is extremely like 
a wild rabbit in its attitudes as well as in make and colour. Never once has it 
been observed spinning. 
I shall only mention three other instances of variation. In a black rabbit, the 
offspring of two half-wild rabbits, one of the fore-legs is crooked, as if it belonged to a 
basset or dachshund. In another, but quite unrelated rabbit—one of the spinners— 
both fore-legs are so bent that the feet turn inwards as is sometimes the case 
in short-legged Skye terriers. All these variations have occurred in cross-bred 
families, but variability also occurs without intercrossing. 
Recently I saw two rooks from a rookery near Edinburgh, which were of a 
reddish-brown or chestnut tint. If similarly coloured and equally prepotent rooks 
continue to appear a new variety may be established. 
* Spinning rabbits would have little chance of surviving in a wild state. 
