Page:George Archdall Reid 1896 The present evolution of man.djvu/139

Rh from a morphological point of view, are valueless as regards the matter under discussion, since modern research has rendered it practically certain that it is the nucleus, not the cell-body, that is the bearer of heredity.

To strengthen the case for the transmission of acquired variations, Mr. Spencer quotes from Lord Morton—

"I tried to breed from the male quagga and a young chestnut mare of seven-eighths Arabian blood, and which had never been bred from; the result was the production of a female hybrid, now five years old, and bearing, both in her form and in her colour, very decided indications of her mixed origin. I subsequently parted with the seven-eighths Arabian mare to Sir George Ouseley, who has bred from her by a very fine black Arabian horse. I yesterday morning examined the produce, a two-year-old filly and a year-old colt. They have the character of the Arabian breed as decidedly as can be expected, where fifteen-sixteenths of the blood are Arabian; and they are fine specimens of that breed; but both in their colour and in the hair of their manes they have a striking resemblance to the quagga. Their colour is bay, marked more or less like the quagga in a darker tint. Both are distinguished by the dark line along the ridge of the back, the dark stripes across the forehand, and the dark bars across the back part of the legs" (p. 34).

Mr. Spencer quotes also the case of a sow, the offspring of which in the second and third litters exhibited traits characteristic of the father of the first, an animal which was drowned shortly after he had been put to the sow. He then remarks—

"And now, in the presence of these facts, what are we to say? Simply that they are fatal to Weismann's