Of these variations, multitudinous as they are, but little is known with perfect accuracy.I will mention to you some two or three cases, because they are very remarkable in themselves, and also because Ishall want to use them afterwards.Reaumur, a famous French naturalist, a great many years ago, in an essay which he wrote upon the art of hatching chickens,--which was indeed a very curious essay,--had occasion to speak of variations and monstrosities.One very remarkable case had come under his notice of a variation in the form of a human member, in the person of a Maltese, of the name of Gratio Kelleia, who was born with six fingers upon each hand, and the like number of toes to each of his feet.That was a case of spontaneous variation.Nobody knows why he was born with that number of fingers and toes, and as we don't know, we call it a case of "spontaneous" variation.There is another remarkable case also.I select these, because they happen to have been observed and noted very carefully at the time.It frequently happens that a variation occurs, but the persons who notice it do not take any care in noting down the particulars, until at length, when inquiries come to be made, the exact circumstances are forgotten; and hence, multitudinous as may be such "spontaneous" variations, it is exceedingly difficult to get at the origin of them.
The second case is one of which you may find the whole details in the "Philosophical Transactions" for the year 1813, in a paper communicated by Colonel Humphrey to the President of the Royal Society,--"On a new Variety in the Breed of Sheep," giving an account of a very remarkable breed of sheep, which at one time was well known in the northern states of America, and which went by the name of the Ancon or the Otter breed of sheep.In the year 1791, there was a farmer of the name of Seth Wright in Massachusetts, who had a flock of sheep, consisting of a ram and, I think, of some twelve or thirteen ewes.Of this flock of ewes, one at the breeding-time bore a lamb which was very singularly formed;it had a very long body, very short legs, and those legs were bowed! Iwill tell you by-and-by how this singular variation in the breed of sheep came to be noted, and to have the prominence that it now has.For the present, I mention only these two cases; but the extent of variation in the breed of animals is perfectly obvious to any one who has studied natural history with ordinary attention, or to any person who compares animals with others of the same kind.It is strictly true that there are never any two specimens which are exactly alike; however similar, they will always differ in some certain particular.
Now let us go back to Atavism,--to the hereditary tendency I spoke of.
What will come of a variation when you breed from it, when Atavism comes, if I may say so, to intersect variation? The two cases of which I have mentioned the history, give a most excellent illustration of what occurs.Gratio Kelleia, the Maltese, married when he was twenty-two years of age, and, as I suppose there were no six-fingered ladies in Malta, he married an ordinary five-fingered person.The result of that marriage was four children; the first, who was christened Salvator, had six fingers and six toes, like his father; the second was George, who had five fingers and toes, but one of them was deformed, showing a tendency to variation; the third was Andre; he had five fingers and five toes, quite perfect; the fourth was a girl, Marie; she had five fingers and five toes, but her thumbs were deformed, showing a tendency toward the sixth.
These children grew up, and when they came to adult years, they all married, and of course it happened that they all married five-fingered and five-toed persons.Now let us see what were the results.Salvator had four children; they were two boys, a girl, and another boy; the first two boys and the girl were six-fingered and six-toed like their grandfather; the fourth boy had only five fingers and five toes.George had only four children; there were two girls with six fingers and six toes; there was one girl with six fingers and five toes on the right side, and five fingers and five toes on the left side, so that she was half and half.The last, a boy, had five fingers and five toes.The third, Andre, you will recollect, was perfectly well-formed, and he had many children whose hands and feet were all regularly developed.Marie, the last, who, of course, married a man who had only five fingers, had four children; the first, a boy, was born with six toes, but the other three were normal.
