Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication, the — Volume 2 by Charles Darwin
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page 17 of 776 (02%)
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point from the cultivated Spanish form, which is said not to be prickly like
its American descendant, or whether it differs from the wild Mediterranean species, which is said not to be social (though this may be due merely to the nature of the conditions), I do not know.] REVERSION TO CHARACTERS DERIVED FROM A CROSS, IN THE CASE OF SUB-VARIETIES, RACES, AND SPECIES. When an individual having some recognisable peculiarity unites with another of the same sub-variety, not having the peculiarity in question, it often reappears in the descendants after an interval of several generations. Every one must have noticed, or heard from old people of children closely resembling in appearance or mental disposition, or in so small and complex a character as expression, one of their grandparents, or some more distant collateral relation. Very many anomalies of structure and diseases (13/16. Mr. Sedgwick gives many instances in the 'British and Foreign Med.-Chirurg. Review' April and July 1863 pages 448, 188.) of which instances have been given in the last chapter, have come into a family from one parent, and have reappeared in the progeny after passing over two or three generations. The following case has been communicated to me on good authority, and may, I believe, be fully trusted: a pointer-bitch produced seven puppies; four were marked with blue and white, which is so unusual a colour with pointers that she was thought to have played false with one of the greyhounds, and the whole litter was condemned; but the gamekeeper was permitted to save one as a curiosity. Two years afterwards a friend of the owner saw the young dog, and declared that he was the image of his old pointer-bitch Sappho, the only blue and white pointer of pure descent which he had ever seen. This led to close inquiry, and it was proved that he was the great-great-grandson of Sappho; so that, according to the common expression, he had only 1/16th of her blood in his veins. I may give one other instance, on the authority of Mr. R. Walker, a large cattle- |
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