e rams enough of the new sort to
serve the whole flock of ewes. In each subsequent year the lambs
were of two kinds; one possessing the curled elastic wool of the
old Merinos, only a little longer and finer; the other like the
new breed. At last, the skillful breeder obtained a flock
combining the fine silky fleece with a smaller head, broader
flanks, and more capacious chest; and several flocks being
crossed with the Mauchamp variety, have produced also the
Mauchamp-Merino breed. The pure Mauchamp wool is remarkable for
its qualities as a combing-wool, owing to the strength, as well
as the length and fineness of the fibre. It is found of great
value by the manufacturers of Cashmere shawls and similar
goods, being second only to the true Cashmere fleece, in the
fine flexible delicacy of the fibre; and when in combination
with Cashmere wool, imparting strength and consistency. The
quantity of the wool has now become as great or greater than
from ordinary Merinos, while the quality commands for it
twenty-five per cent. higher price in the French market. Surely
breeders cannot watch too closely any accidental peculiarity of
conformation or characteristic in their flocks or herds."

Mons. Vilmorin, the eminent horticulturist of Paris, has likened the
law of similarity to the centripetal force, and the law of variation
to the centrifugal force; and in truth their operations seem
analogous, and possibly they may be the same in kind, though certainly
unlike in this, that they are not reducible to arithmetical
calculation and cannot be subjected to definite measurement. His
thought is at least a highly suggestive one and may be pursued with
profit.

Among the "faint rays" alluded to by Mr. Darwin as throwing light upon
the changes dependent on the laws of reproduction, there is one,
perhaps the brightest yet seen, which deserves our notice. It is the
apparent influence of the male first having fruitful intercourse with
a female upon her subsequent offspring by other males. Attention was
first directed to this by the following circumstance, related by Sir
Everard Home: A young chestnut mare, seven-eighths Arabian, belonging
to the Earl of Morton, was covered in 1815 by a Quagga, which is a
species of wild ass from Africa, and marked somewhat in the style of a
Zebra. The mare was covered but once by the Quagga, and after a
pregnancy of eleven months an