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 considerable flock of this variety, and a large number of them
were spread throughout Massachusetts. Most unfortunately, however--I
suppose it was because they were so common--nobody took enough notice
of them to preserve their skeletons; and although Colonel Humphreys