the other children, Marie and George. Marie (whose
thumbs only were deformed) gave birth to a boy with six toes, and three
other normally formed children; but George, who was not quite so pure a
pentadactyle, begot, first, two girls, each of whom had six fingers
and toes; then a girl with six fingers on each hand and six toes on the
right foot, but only five toes on the left; and lastly, a boy with only
five fingers and toes. In these instances, therefore, the variety, as
it were, leaped over one generation to reproduce itself in full force in
the next. Finally, the purely pentadactyle Andre was the father of many
children, not one of whom departed from the normal parental type.

If a variation which approaches the nature of a monstrosity can strive
thus forcibly to reproduce itself, it is not wonderful that less
aberrant modifications should tend to be preserved even more strongly;
and the history of the Ancon sheep is, in this respect, particularly
instructive. With the "'cuteness" characteristic of their nation, the
neighbours of the Massachusetts farmer imagined it would be an excellent
thing if all his sheep were imbued with the stay-at-home tendencies
enforced by Nature upon the newly-arrived ram; and they advised Wright
to kill the old patriarch of his fold, and install the Ancon ram in his
place. The result justified their sagacious anticipations, and coincided
very nearly with what occurred to the progeny of Gratio Kelleia. The
young lambs were almost always either pure Ancons, or pure ordinary
sheep.* ([Footnote] *Colonel Humphreys' statements are exceedingly
explicit on this point:--"When an Ancon ewe is impregnated by a common
ram, the increase resembles wholly either the ewe or the ram. The
increase of the common ewe impregnated by an Ancon ram follows entirely
the one or the other, without blending any of the distinguishing and
essential peculiarities of both. Frequent instances have happened
where common ewes have had twins by Ancon rams, when one exhibited
the complete marks and features of the ewe, the other of the ram. The
contrast has been rendered singularly striking, when one short-legged
and one long-legged lamb, produced at a birth, have been seen sucking
the dam at the same time."--'Philosophical Transactions', 1813, Pt. I.
pp. 89, 90.) But when sufficient Ancon sheep were obtained to interbreed
with one another, it was found that the offspring was always pure Ancon.
Colonel Humphreys, in fact, s