with its many remarkable contingencies, were discussed. In the present chapter
some other related phenomena will be treated of, as fully as my materials
permit.

FIXEDNESS OF CHARACTER.

It is a general belief amongst breeders that the longer any character has been
transmitted by a breed, the more fully it will continue to be transmitted. I
do not wish to dispute the truth of the proposition that inheritance gains
strength simply through long continuance, but I doubt whether it can be
proved. In one sense the proposition is little better than a truism; if any
character has remained constant during many generations, it will be likely to
continue so, if the conditions of life remain the same. So, again, in
improving a breed, if care be taken for a length of time to exclude all
inferior individuals, the breed will obviously tend to become truer, as it
will not have been crossed during many generations by an inferior animal. We
have previously seen, but without being able to assign any cause, that, when a
new character appears, it is occasionally from the first constant, or
fluctuates much, or wholly fails to be transmitted. So it is with the
aggregate of slight differences which characterise a new variety, for some
propagate their kind from the first much truer than others. Even with plants
multiplied by bulbs, layers, etc., which may in one sense be said to form
parts of the same individual, it is well known that certain varieties retain
and transmit through successive bud-generations their newly-acquired
characters more truly than others. In none of these, nor in the following
cases, does there appear to be any relation between the force with which a
character is transmitted and the length of time during which it has been
transmitted. Some varieties, such as white and yellow hyacinths and white
sweet-peas, transmit their colours more faithfully than do the varieties which
have retained their natural colour. In the Irish family, mentioned in the