Notes on hybridity : designed as a supplement to the memoir on that subject in the last number of this Journal / by Samuel George Morton.

  • Morton, Samuel George, 1799-1851.
Date:
[1850?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Notes on hybridity : designed as a supplement to the memoir on that subject in the last number of this Journal / by Samuel George Morton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    &AixiiJ» ,r 146 Appendix. opposed to the doctrine of fertile hybridity among domestic animals; and moreover, what he supposed to have occurred in Egypt,has actual- ly been in progress in Chili for the greater part of a century, as demon- strated by Molina and Chevreul. Account of a prolific progeny from a Deer coupled with a Ram. By Carl N. Heixenius.* The favor with which my account, given in 1790—concerning an offspring produced from a cross between the deer and a ram—was re- ceived, induces me also to furnish for the examination of the Royal Academy, my subsequent experiments with respect to this offspring and its peculiarities. After the deer (Cervus capriolus) was crossed in 1789, by the ram (Ovis arics) they were kept together; and every subsequent Spring, between the Gth and 10th of May, she brought forth a young one, the sex changing with the alternate year, so that during tho four years she has borne two young ones of each sex. The color of the female was blackish brown, and otherwise like the mother. The color of the male was always quite white, like the sire. This latter hybrid attained to a great size during the first year. It has a white, straight horn, more re- sembling that of a he-goat than tho ram, yet somewhat rounded, with- out the least tendency to branch at the points, which have changed only by increasing in size. At the same time, tho female, like its mo- ther, remains harmless. The first progeny of the ram and deer was a female, which was ac- cidentally killed before her power of procreation had been tested. When, in the following year, the deer had produced a male, I caused him, so soon as he ceased to be a suckling, (which, with these animals, usually happens towards the end of September,) to be shut up with a ewe of the Finland breed. The experiment succeeded beyond my ex- pectation ; for, in midsummer following, the ewe (removing all my doubts about cross-breeding) bore a male, which, in color, proportions, and shape of the horns, was exactly like the sire. I obtained by this experiment, at least, in my own opinion, satisfactory evidence that the cross-breed between these two species could be propagated into a race. But it yet remained to ascertain how far the hybrid offspring could mutually couple and multiply. This opportunity was afforded me in 1792, when the deer, (for the third time with young) brought forth a female. After this female had left her dam early in the autumn, I coupled her with the male which the deer had borne in the past year, (1791) and which animal had al- ready produced offspring with the Finland ewe during the past winter. On the 22d of May, a male animal was born, like the previous young of the mother-parent, yet fourteen days later. But, notwithstanding this difference of age, the two young animals became so much like each * Translated by my friend, John Lambert, Esq., from Kongl. Vetens. Acad, nya Handlingar. Tom. xiv., Stockholm, 1794. (New memoirs of the Royal S Academy of Stockholm.