e, wonderful as is this action, and not
through the intervention of the crossed embryo." For references to Mr.
Galton's experiments on transfusion of blood, see Letter 273.) I would
communicate it if you so decide. You might give as a preliminary reason
the publication in the "Transactions" of the celebrated Morton case
and the pig case by Mr. Giles. You might also allude to the evident
physiological importance of such facts as bearing on the theory of
generation. Whether it would be prudent to allude to despised pangenesis
I cannot say, but I fully believe pangenesis will have its successful
day. Pray ascertain carefully the colour of the dam and sire. See
about duns in my book ["Animals and Plants"], Volume I., page 55. The
extension of the mane and form of hoofs are grand new facts. Is the
hair of your horse at all curly? for [an] observed case [is] given by me
(Volume II., page 325) from Azara of correlation of forms of hoof with
curly hairs. See also in my book (Volume I., page 55; Volume II., page
41) how exceedingly rare stripes are on the faces of horses in England.
Give the age of your horse.

You are aware that Dr. Carpenter and others have tried to account for
the effects of a first impregnation from the influence of the blood
of the crossed embryo; but with physiologists who believe that the
reproductive elements are actually formed by the reproductive glands,
this view is inconsistent. Pray look at what I have said in "Domestic
Animals" (Volume I., pages 402-5) against this doctrine. It seems to
me more probable that the gemmules affect the ovaria alone. I remember
formerly speculating, like you, on the assertion that wives grow like
their husbands; but how impossible to eliminate effects of imitation and
same habits of life, etc. Your letter has interested me profoundly.

P.S.--Since publishing I have heard of additional cases--a very good
one in regard to Westphalian pigs crossed by English boar, and all
subsequent offspring affected, given in "Illust. Landwirth-Zeitung,"
1868, page 143.

I have shown that mules are often striped, though neither parent may be
striped,--due to ancient reversion. Now, Fritz Muller writes to me from
S. Brazil: "I have been assured, by persons who certainly never had
heard of Lord Morton's mare, that mares which have borne hybrids to an
ass are particularly liable to produce afterwards striped ass-colts." So
a previous fertilisation apparently gives to the subsequent offspr