only one succeeded. The hybrid was a smaller edition of Romulus. The
dam Nora had been bred from before, and had produced, by a black
Shetland pony, a foal of a dun color which was markedly striped.
After the birth of the hybrid she was put to a bay Welsh pony; the
resulting foal had only the faintest indication of stripes, which
soon disappeared. It is a remarkable fact that Nora’s foals were more
striped before she had been mated with the zebra than afterward.
3. Five Icelandic ponies were mated with Matopo, of whom one produced,
in 1897, a dark-colored hybrid. The dam, Tundra, was a yellow and
white skewbald which had previously produced a light bay foal to a
stallion of its own breed. Her third foal (1898) was fathered by a bay
Shetland pony, and in coloration closely resembled its dam. There was
no hint of infection in this case. This year Professor Ewart has bred
from this mare, by Matopo, a zebra-hybrid of a creamy-fawn color, and
so primitive in its markings that he believes it to stand in much the
same relation to horses, zebras, and asses as the blue-rock does to the
various breeds of pigeons (see illustration).
[Illustration: TUNDRA (AN ICELAND PONY), HER FOAL, CIRCUS GIRL (BORN
1898), AND HER HYBRID FOAL, SIR JOHN (BY MATOPO), WHEN A MONTH OLD
(BORN 1899).]
4. Two Irish mares, both bays, produced hybrids by Matopo, and
subsequently bore pure-bred foals. One of the latter was by a
thoroughbred horse, the other by a hackney pony. The foals were without
stripes, and showed no kind of indication that their mother had ever
been mated with a zebra.
5. Although Professor Ewart experimented with seven English
thoroughbred mares and an Arab, he only succeeded in one case. The mare
produced twin hybrids, one of which unfortunately died immediately
after birth. This summer the same mare has produced a foal to a
thoroughbred chestnut; “neither in make, color, nor action” does it in
any way resemble a zebra or a zebra-hybrid.
6. A bay mare which had been in foal to Matopo for some months
miscarried. Here--if there is anything in the direct infection
theory--the unused germ-cells of the zebra had a better chance than
usual of reaching the ova from which future offspring are to arise, yet
neither of the two foals which this mare subsequently produced to a
thoroughbred horse “in any way suggests a zebra.”
The above is the record of the successful experiments which have been
tried at Penycuik, with a view of throwing light on the existence of
telegony in the _Equidae_. Experiments have also been made with other
animals, such as rabbits, dogs, pigeons, fowls, and ducks. Space allows
us to quote but one. Six white doe rabbits, all of which had borne pure
white offspring to white bucks, were crossed with wild brown rabbits.
The result was forty-two young rabbits, all of a bluish-black color,
which in a very short time turned to a brown. These, at the time of
writing, were about half grown, and Professor Ewart tells us that it is
almost impossible to distinguish them from a full-blooded wild rabbit
kept in the same inclosure. The half-breeds, however, were tamer and
slightly lighter in color. The mother does next bred with white bucks
again, and in every case bred true. The pure white young showed no
trace of throwing back to a previous sire.
A phenomenon somewhat similar to telegony, and one which seems at
present quite unexplained, is that a hen which has been crossed with
a cock of another breed often lays eggs whose shell is no longer
like that of its own breed, but in color, and frequently in texture,
resembles that of the breed with which it has been crossed. When one
calls to mind that the shell is deposited by a special shell-gland
which is in no way connected with the ovary, but is a part of the
quite distinct oviduct, and that the change in the color of the
eggshell must be caused by some change brought about in this gland
by cross-fertilization, we begin to recognize how mysterious and
inexplicable are many of the problems which affect breeding.
Throughout his account of his experiments Professor Ewart is extremely
cautious in claiming to prove anything, but we think he has justified
his claim to have shown that telegony by no means always occurs, as
many breeders believe. His experiments so far support the view of
Continental mule breeders, that telegony, if it takes place, occurs
very seldom. But the experiments are not complete, and it is much to be
hoped that they may be continued. If it should subsequently appear that
out of fifty pure-bred foals from dams which have been previously mated
with the zebra no single instance of telegony be found, the doctrine
may surely be neglected by breeders; and if in the experiments which
are now being carried out with various other mammals and birds telegony
does not occur, the doctrine may be relegated to the ‘dumping-ground’
of old superstitions. The present state of the matter may be summed
up in the professor’s own words: “The experiments, as far as they
have gone, afford no evidence in support of the telegony hypothesis.”
Nothing has occurred which is not explicable on the theory of reversion.
There is no factor in breeding of more importance than prepotency,
and none which is more difficult to estimate. The term is necessarily
a relative one, and, further, it may affect some characters and not
others. Often it must go undetected, as in the case of the leader of a
herd of wild cattle, who may be highly prepotent, but whose prepotency,
unless he is mated with members of another herd displaying different
characters, may pass unnoticed. Breeders claim to be able to produce
cattle so prepotent that they will produce their like, however mated.
A well-known dealer in highly-bred ponies used to boast that he had a
filly so prepotent that, though she were sent to the best Clydesdale
stallion in Scotland, she would throw a colt showing no cart-horse
blood. Prepotency is usually obtained by inbreeding, which up to a
certain point fixes the character of a race, and in all cases tends to
check variation and reversion--the Jews, for instance, as a race are
strongly prepotent--but there is no doubt that it may also arise as a
sport, and this is probably its more usual origin in a state of Nature.
Professor Ewart, however, believes that inbreeding is much commoner
among wild animals than has usually been conceded, and he holds the
opinion that the prepotency so induced has played a considerable part
in the origin of species. This, if true, would to some extent take the
place of Romanes’ ‘physiological selection’; for Romanes also thought
that, though of great importance, variation and natural selection were
insufficient to account for the origin of species without some factor
which would help to mitigate the swamping effect of intercrossing--some
such agency as the fences of modern farms and cattle ranches--without
which the famous cattle breeds of the world would soon disappear in a
general ‘regression toward mediocrity.’
In inbreeding the great difficulty of the breeder is to know when
to stop. Carried too far it undoubtedly leads to degeneracy. In the
‘Domesticated Animals of Great Britain,’ Low records the case of
a gentleman who inbred foxhounds to such an extent that “the race
actually became monstrous and perished.” Hogs, if too closely inbred,
grow hair instead of bristles; their legs become short and unable to
support the body; and not only is their fertility diminished, but the
mothers can not nourish the young.
So far as is known, no direct investigations have been made to test
how far inbreeding may be carried in the _Equidae_; but, on the other
hand, the breeding of race-horses may perhaps be looked upon as a
gigantic experiment in this direction. Our English thoroughbreds can
be traced back to a few imported sires--the Byerly Turk, imported
in 1689; the Darley Arabian, in 1710; and the Godolphin Arabian,
in 1730. Since then, by careful breeding and nutrition, they have
increased on an average some eight or nine inches in height. There is,
however, a widely spread impression that at present there is a marked
deterioration in the staying power and in the general ‘fitness’ of the
racer. The falling off is further shown by a fact commented on by Sir
Walter Gilbey--viz., “the smallness of the percentage of even tolerably
successful horses out of a prodigious number bred at an enormous
outlay.” In support of this he quotes a sentence from the _Times_
(December 27, 1897), referring to a sale in which thirty-two yearlings
had been sold for 51,250 guineas: “These thirty-two yearlings” (said
the _Times_) “are represented by two winners of five races, Florio
Rubattino and La Reine, who have contributed about 2,000_l._ to the
total cost; and there is not, so far as can be known, a single one of
the thirty others with any prospect of making a race-horse.”
If, then, it is true that the English race-horse is on the down grade,
what steps should be taken to arrest this descent? Sir Everett Millais
restored a pack of basset hounds by crossing them with a bloodhound,
the original forefather of bassets. The resulting pups were bassets in
form, but not quite bassets in color; when, however, these cross-breeds
were mated with bassets the majority of the pups turned out to be
perfect bassets both in shape and coloration. This indicates that
one way to rejuvenate the race-horse would be to have recourse to a
new importation of the best Arab mares that the plains of Arabia can
produce. Breeders hesitate to adopt this course, because their present
breed is not only larger but, over very short distances, fleeter than
its forefathers. The shortening of the course in recent years is
probably a further sign of the degeneracy of our present racers. Were
new blood introduced and more three- or four-mile races instituted,
we should doubtless soon have a return to the champion form of bygone
days. Another method would be to import some of the racers of Australia
or New Zealand and cross them with the home product. Different
surroundings, food, etc., soon influence the constitution, and this
being so, it would be advisable to select those horses of pure descent
which have been longest subjected to these altered conditions. Thus the
chance of reversion occurring would be increased.
It has been noticed more than once in the preceding pages that a young
animal showing reversion is strong and vigorous. It is the belief
of dog breeders that those members of an inbred litter which show
reversion are the strongest and best. Similarly, experience shows that
if an inbred sire and dam produce a dun-colored striped foal it almost
always turns out well. Reversion is accompanied by a rejuvenescence; it
is as though the young animal had appeared at an earlier period in the
life history of the race, before the race had undergone those changes
in the way of deterioration which so often accompany inbreeding.
Wild animals are frequently thought to be prepotent over tame ones, but
of the eleven zebra-hybrids bred at Penycuik only two took markedly
after their sire, the zebra Matopo.[B] There are other experiments
recounted which tell the other way, and at present this matter remains
in a state of considerable uncertainty.
[B] The illustration shows the difference between the facial
marks of the zebra and those of the hybrid. The latter, in
this respect, bears much the same relation to the former as
a blue-rock pigeon does to a fancy type.
This article must not close without a word or two more about the
zebra-hybrids. It is mentioned above that only two out of the eleven
which have already been born took strongly after their father.
[Illustration: ROMULUS.]
[Illustration: MATOPO.]
Those who have seen the young hybrids playing about in the fields at
Penycuik must agree that they are the most charming and compactly built
little animals possible. Of Romulus, the eldest of the herd, Professor
Ewart says: “When a few days old [he] was the most attractive little
creature I have ever seen. He seemed to combine all the grace and
beauty of an antelope and a well-bred Arab foal.... What has struck me
from the first has been his alertness and the expedition with which he
escapes from suspicious or unfamiliar objects. When quite young, if
caught napping in the paddock, the facility with which he, as it were,
rolled on to his feet and darted off was wonderful.”
The writer can fully confirm all the praise Professor Ewart lavishes on
his pets; in truth, Romulus has been well described as a “bonnie colt
with rare quality of bone ... and with the dainty step and the dignity
of the zebra.” Remus, the offspring of the Irish mare, has been from
the first more friendly than his half-brother; he objected less to the
process of weaning, and, if he survives, promises to be the handsomest
and fleetest of the existing hybrids.
On the whole, the hybrids are unusually hardy; only two have been
lost--one, a twin, which died almost as soon as it was born, and
another which lived some three months and then succumbed. It is only
fair to say that the dam of the latter, who was only three years old
when the hybrid was born, had been much weakened by attacks of the
strongylus worm, and that she was the victim of close inbreeding.
Both the zebras and the hybrids which have been under observation
at Penycuik show a remarkable capacity for recovering from wounds.
Accidental injuries heal with great rapidity. On one occasion the
surviving twin was discovered with a flap of skin some five inches long
hanging down over the front of the left fetlock. The skin was stitched
into its place again, during which operation the little hybrid fought
desperately and cried piteously; but it soon recovered, the wound
healed, and now scarcely a scar remains. There was no lameness and no
swelling either at the fetlock or above the knee. About a year ago four
hybrid colts and three ordinary foals were attacked by that scourge of
the stable, the strongylus worm. One of the latter died and another was
reduced almost to a skeleton; the hybrids, though obviously affected,
suffered much less than the others and soon recovered. It is further
noticeable that the hybrids suffer less from colds and other slight
ailments than the mares and horses among which they live.
There is no doubt that it is a comparatively easy matter to breed these
hybrids, and that they are not only extremely attractive animals to the
eye, but hardy and vigorous, possessed of great staying powers, and
promising to be capable of severe work.
From what we have said, it is evident that the Penycuik experiments are
of the highest interest, both practical and theoretical, and the public
spirit and self-devotion shown by the Edinburgh professor in carrying
them out can not be too widely recognized.
COLONIES AND THE MOTHER COUNTRY. (I.)
BY JAMES COLLIER.
We may conceive a country, with its colonies and dependencies grouped
round it at unequal distances and in different directions, as a giant
organism, which has its laws of growth and development, its phases of
expansion, activity and decay, like all other organisms. We see it
enlarging in mass, but to the last remaining amorphous, or assimilable
to no known forms. We observe the heart and brain fostering, helping
and sometimes hindering, directing, controlling and guarding the
evolution of the nearer or remoter portions. We perceive on scrutiny
threads of relationship being woven, new nervous, muscular and
circulatory systems being developed, which connect the extremities
with the center and unite both into an organic whole. We are struck
at times with the rupture of the mass and the permanent separation of
parts of it; at times we are impressed by an unexpected augmentation
in previously unknown areas, as if to repair the loss of the old. We
witness the extremities reacting on the original nucleus, to some
extent remodeling the heart and brain and thus creating a type of
organism unprecedented in Nature. And we find that of a limited number
of such colossal types, ever battling for predominance, one or another
gains an ascendency and the rest are reduced to a secondary rank, or,
being lopped of their colonial extensions, cease to be world-wide
organisms and shrink into the merely national organisms from which they
sprang.
Snails put out their feelers as they go. The bolder insects and the
more adventurous birds fly small or great distances in search of a
feeding ground; some are carried out to sea, and become involuntary
‘discoverers’ of new lands.[C] The social organism puts out its feelers
and extends in mass. The community pushes out its scouts, and a portion
of it, at longer or shorter intervals, follows their lead. Thus the
mother country discovers many of the territories it colonizes. Cadiz
was unknown to the Eastern world till a Phœnician merchant ship was
blown thither. The West African coast and the mouth of the Rhone were
discovered by the Carthaginians. Libya (west of Egypt) was a _terra
incognita_ to the Greeks till a Greek sailor who had been driven on its
inhospitable coast informed the emigrant Theræans of its existence.
The Portuguese discovered the Azores. The Spaniards discovered the
West India Islands, Mexico, Peru and Florida. France discovered the
country lying along the basin of the St. Lawrence and the valley of
the Mississippi. Holland, through an English navigator, discovered
the Hudson River and the future site of New York. England, through
another alien, discovered the New England coast and that of Virginia;
it discovered, or rediscovered, vast Australia, New Zealand, Tasmania
and other South Sea islands; in quite recent years it discovered the
sources of the Nile. All these countries have been or are about to be
colonized by the peoples that discovered them.
[C] Examples of insects are given in Darwin’s ‘Journal,’ and of
birds in Wallace’s ‘Malay Archipelago.’
Discovery is chiefly the work of private enterprise. It was Phœnician
and Greek traders who explored the northern and western coasts of
Africa, of Spain, of Gaul, and of Britain. Scandinavian mariners,
Norman and English fishermen, discovered North America. Spanish
adventurers found the Canaries. The host of travelers have explored
on their private account. Yet there are animals, like Mr. Thompson’s
Lobo, the wolf, and Spot, the crow, able generals and leaders of large
bands, who seem to direct exploratory movements. So after a while
governments lend their aid when they have ends of their own or their
aid is needed. The two most memorable exploring expeditions of modern
times, and the most momentous in their results, were either in great
part or wholly equipped by their respective governments. Two of the
vessels of Columbus were impressed ships, and the equipment proceeded
from the Castilian treasury, the third being fitted out by merchant
mariners of Palos. The expedition of Captain Cook, which practically
added a new continent to the globe, was altogether a state enterprise,
and its celebrated commander was not, like Columbus, its designer
and organizer, but only its director. The Portuguese discoveries
of the Azores and the Cape were also state-aided. From this time
forward Spanish and Portuguese adventurers received a royal license to
discover, and the South American continent, with Mexico and Peru as
its brightest jewels, was discovered by just such adventurers. Where a
government refuses itself to discover, it may, like the States-General
of Holland, assure to the enterprising a terminable monopoly of trade
with newly discovered lands, and to this assurance the exploration of
New York and its neighborhood and the discovery of Connecticut were
due. Merchant companies have naturally a keen eye to the main chance,
but those English and Dutch merchants can not be accused of timidity
who chartered Cabot, Gilbert, Hudson and other daring mariners to seek
a northwest passage to the East. Kings, in their private capacity,
newspaper proprietors and rich individuals, from generous motives,
sometimes equip and support explorers like Stanley and Winwood Reade.
Geographical, like scientific, discovery is often accidental. Phœnician
and Greek traders, Spanish adventurers, Norman and English fishermen
were blown by a succession of gales to Cadiz and Cyrene, the Canaries,
Mexico and Newfoundland. Diaz was storm-carried southward to the Cape,
where two shipwrecked mariners long afterward induced the Dutch to
settle. Columbus, Cabot and Hudson sought a passage to India or China.
The day comes, however, when chance gives way to a systematic art of
discovery. The voyage of Columbus was the first where the end was
deliberately aimed at and patiently worked up to. Under Ferdinand the
Catholic maritime discovery was raised to an art. A board of eminent
Spanish navigators, with Vespucci at its head, sat to construct
charts and trace out routes for projected voyages. The primary object
of Cook’s first voyage was astronomical, and he was scientifically
equipped for discovery on that, as of course also on the two later
voyages, whose sole end was the one so gloriously gained.
Prior discovery confers an indefeasible title to occupy as against
any other colonizing power. Misled by a false statement, a British
man-of-war entered the Mississippi presumably to take possession of
Louisiana, but turned aside on being informed of the earlier French
occupation. In the thirties two naval expeditions were exploring at
the same time in Spencer Gulf, South Australia. Though the French
gracefully yielded the _pas_ to the prior English ship, they left a
mark on a number of points that still bear French names. There seems
to be now no doubt that Brazil had been discovered and rediscovered by
Spanish navigators before the Portuguese _carbajal_ set foot on it,
but, owing to an international agreement, the discoverers ceded their
claim.
Discovery does not necessarily issue in colonization. The more or less
mythical discoveries of the coasts of North America and Australia in
the ninth and sixteenth centuries interest the antiquarian rather
than the historian. They resemble the so-called anticipations of
scientific discoveries--Cesalpino’s, of Harvey; Vico’s, of Wolf and
Niebuhr; Swedenborg’s, of Kant; and a host of guessers, of Darwin. As
proof alone is discovery in science, so only exploration is discovery
in geography. For lack of this essential element even well-certified
discoveries are apt to be fruitless. Tasman’s frightened glimpse of New
Zealand and his more careful coasting of Tasmania left durable marks
on both countries, but only in nomenclature. They led to nothing. No
Dutch settlement seems ever to have been made south of New Guinea; no
northern nationality is more conspicuously absent among the colonizers
of the South Seas. The earlier Portuguese discovery of the Cape of
Good Hope was regarded as that of a halfway house to a more distant
goal; they stopped to recruit, then hurried off to rich Cathay. The
French left their names to a dozen headlands and rivers on the coast of
Western Australia, but, though they often excited the suspicions of New
South Wales, they made no attempt to settle.