rom 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.

Now observe what very extraordinary phenomena are presented here.
You have an accidental variation arising from what you may call a
monstrosity; you have that monstrosity tendency or variation diluted in
the first instance by an admixture with a female of normal construction,
and you would naturally expect that, in the results of such an union,
the monstrosity, if repeated, would be in equal proportion with the
normal type; that is to say, that the children would be half and half,
some taking the peculiarity of the father, and the others being of
the purely normal type of the mother; but you see we have a great
preponderance of the abnormal