ies of goats have fleeces that closely resemble those on
the sheep. There are sheep with horns, and goats without those striking
appendages. The Cape of Good Hope goat might easily be mistaken for a
sheep. It would seem, judging by the results of Roux's experiments, that
there is no great difficulty in the way of obtaining a cross between the
sheep and the goat. I do not mean an ordinary half-breed, but a prolific
hybrid similar to the leporide. Of course, it is impossible, _a priori_,
to say whether or not such a hybrid race, supposing it produceable,
would be valuable; but as goats can find a subsistence on mountains
where sheep would starve, it is possible that an animal, essentially a
sheep, but with a streak of goat blood in it, could be profitably kept
on very poor uplands. Whether a race of what we might term _caprides_ be
formed or not we have derived most suggestive information from M. Roux's
experiments, which I hope may be turned to account in what is by far the
most important field of enquiry, the judicious crossing of varieties of
the same species.

It is a _quaestio vexata_ whether or not the parents generally exercise
different influences upon the shape and size of their offspring. Mr.
Spooner supports the supposition--a very popular one--that the sire
gives shape to the external organs, whilst the dam affects the internal
organisation. I have considerable doubt as to the probability of this
theory. The children who spring from the union of a white man with a
negress possess physical and intellectual qualities which are nearly if
not quite the _mean_ of their parents; but the offspring of parents,
both of the same race--be it Caucasian, Mongolian, or Indian--frequently
conform, intellectually and corporeally, to either of their progenitors.
Thus, of the children of a tall, thin, dark man, and a short, fat,
fair woman, some will be like their father, and the others will
resemble their mother, or, perhaps, all may "take after" either parent.
Sometimes a child appears to be in every respect unlike its parents,
and occasionally the likeness of an ancestor appears in a descendant, in
whom no resemblance to his immediate progenitors can be detected. It is
highly probable that both parents exercise, under most circumstances, a
joint influence upon the qualities of their offspring, but that one of
them may produce so much greater an effect that the influence of the
other is not recognisable, except perhaps to a ve