Letter to the Rev. John Bachman, D.D., on the question of hybridity in animals : considered in reference to the unity of the human species / by Samuel George Morton.
- Samuel George Morton
- Date:
- 1850
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Letter to the Rev. John Bachman, D.D., on the question of hybridity in animals : considered in reference to the unity of the human species / 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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![genius, he sometimes erred in opinion for the sake of hypothesis; and the justice of this remark may be shown by a single example. The great naturalist absolutely classed all the ox-tribe into one species be- cause they were capable of re-producing among themselves a hybrid offspring thet could perpetuate itself by union with the parent stocks! And in this category he includes the domestic cattle, the ox of Europe, that of Asia and Africa, the Bison of America, the auroch and the zebu !* So completely was Buffon blinded by this hypothesis, that it led him into errors of judgment in which he is not sustained by a single zoolo- gist of the present day. In another place you take exception to my remark that the fecundity of the progeny of the horse and the ass depends much on tempera- ture, and you add a doubt whether these phenomena occur more fre- quently in hot than in cold climates. Mules have been most fertile in St. Domingo, Spain, Italy and New Holland. Ces faits, qui me para- issent bien constates, nous demontrent que, dans les climats chauds, la mule peut non settlement concevoir, mais perfectionner et porter a ter- me son fruit.f While on this subject I may add the remarkable fact, that in the city of Valencia, in Spain, a horse and she mule, produced colts on five dif- ferent occasions; and the same mule subsequently bore another colt by another horse.J I regret to observe that when I quote Prof. Owen for the fact of a mule between a bull and a sheep.£ you quote the adverse opinion of that distingushed man on the question of fertile hybridity, just as if such an opinion would do away with the fact which he had himself recorded. In the passage quoted from Prof. Owen he observes that the individ- uals of different species do not voluntarily copulate. This statement only goes to prove the correctness of the proverbial say- ing that a man cannot be equally great in every thing; for while naturalists, * Opus citat. Tonic xxix, p. 120, ]24, 137, 153, f Buffon, ut supra T. xxii, p. 421. For tho fart of the prolific character of the mule in New Holland, see also Trans, of Entomolug Soc. of London, I, p. 267. \ Buffon, op. citat. T. xxix, p. 577. § Dr. Shaw, in his travels in Algiers, states that he saw the hybrid offspring of an ass and a cow. He describes if as a small animal, with the head and tail of the cow, but with a solid foot like the ass, and destitute of horns. This cross is called by the French jumar, and is said to have repeatedly occurred in Southern France. Another hybrid bearing the same name is declared to have been more than once derived from the bull and she ass.—Sonini, in Buffon, xxii. p. 449.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21142592_0006.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
