slightly in the second
generation, is washed out in the third, while the progeny of Andre, who
escaped in the first instance, escape altogether.

We have in this case a good example of nature's tendency to the
perpetuation of a variation. Here it is certainly a variation which
carried with it no use or benefit; and yet you see the tendency to
perpetuation may be so strong, that, notwithstanding a great admixture
of pure blood, the variety continues itself up to the third generation,
which is largely marked with it. In this case, as I have said, there
was no means of the second generation intermarrying with any but
five-fingered persons, and the question naturally suggests itself, What
would have been the result of such marriage? Reaumur narrates this case
only as far as the third generation. Certainly it would have been
an exceedingly curious thing if we could have traced this matter any
further; had the cousins intermarried, a six-fingered variety of the
human race might have been set up.

To show you that this supposition is by no means an unreasonable one,
let me now point out what took place in the case of Seth Wright's sheep,
where it happened to be a matter of moment to him to obtain a breed
or raise a flock of sheep like that accidental variety that I have
described--and I will tell you why. In that part of Massachusetts where
Seth Wright was living, the fields were separated by fences, and the
sheep, which were very active and robust, would roam abroad, and without
much difficulty jump over these fences into other people's farms. As
a matter of course, this exuberant activity on the part of the
sheep constantly gave rise to all sorts of quarrels, bickerings, and
contentions among the farmers of the neighbourhood; so it occurred to
Seth Wright, who was, like his successors, more or less 'cute, that if
he could get a stock of sheep like those with the bandy legs, they would
not be able to jump over the fences so readily, and he acted upon that
idea. He killed his old ram, and as soon as the young one arrived at
maturity, he bred altogether from it. The result was even more striking
than in the human experiment which I mentioned just now. Colonel
Humphreys testifies that it always happened that the offspring were
either pure Ancons or pure ordinary sheep; that in no case was there
any mixing of the Ancons with the others. In consequence of this, in
the course of a very few years, the farmer was able to get a very