Arabians. But what makes the case still more
striking is that the hair of the mane in these colts resembled that of the
quagga, being short, stiff, and upright. Hence there can be no doubt that
the quagga affected the character of the offspring subsequently begot by
the black Arabian horse. With respect to the varieties of our domesticated
animals, many similar and well-authenticated facts have been
published,[950] and others have been communicated to me, plainly showing
the influence of the first male on the progeny subsequently borne by the
mother to other males. It will suffice to give a single instance, recorded
in the 'Philosophical Transactions,' in a paper following that by Lord
Morton: Mr. Giles put a sow of Lord Western's black and white Essex breed
to a wild boar of a deep chesnut colour; and the "pigs produced partook in
appearance of both boar and sow, but in some the chesnut colour of the boar
strongly prevailed." After the boar had long been dead, the sow was put to
a boar of her own black and white breed,--a kind which is well known to
breed very true and never to show any chesnut colour,--yet from this union
the sow produced some young pigs which were plainly marked with the same
chesnut tint as in the first litter. Similar cases have so frequently
occurred, that careful breeders avoid putting a choice female to an
inferior male on account of the injury to her subsequent progeny which may
be expected to follow.

{405}

Some physiologists have attempted to account for these remarkable results
from a first impregnation by the close attachment and freely
intercommunicating blood-vessels between the modified embryo and the
mother. But it is a most improbable hypothesis that the mere blood of one
individual should affect the reproductive organs of another individual in
such a manner as to modify the subsequent offspring. The analogy from the
direct action of foreign pollen on the ovarium and seed-coats of the
mother-plant strongly supports the belief that the male element acts
directly on the reproductive organs of the female, wonderful as is this
action, and not through the intervention of the crossed embryo. With birds
there is no such close connection between the embryo and mother as in the
case of mammals: yet a careful observer, Dr. Chapuis, states[951] that with
pigeons the influence of a first male sometimes makes itself perceived in
the succeeding broods; but this statement, before it can be fully tru