It is believed that the series of facts herein embodied will establish
the natural existence of the following degrees of hybridity, viz.: —
1st. That in "which hybrids never reproduce; in other words, where the mixed progeny
begins and ends with the first cross.
2d. That in which the hybrids are incapable of reproducing inter se, but multiply by union
with the parent stock.
3d. That in which animals of unquestionably distinct speoies produce a progeny which is
prolific inter se. ,
4th. That which takes place between closely proximate species — among mankind, for
example, and among those domestic animals most essential to human wants and
happiness: here the prolificacy is unlimited.
There is, moreover, what may be called a mixed form of hybridity,
that certainly has exerted very great influence in modifying some
domestic animals; and which cannot be better expressed than in the
language of Hamilton Smith: —
“ The advances towards hybrid cases are always made by the domestic species to the
wild; and when thus obtained, if kept by itself, and the cross-breed gradually becomes
sterile, it does not prevent repeated intermixture of one or the other; and therefore the
admission of a great proportion of alien blood, which may again be crossed,upon by other
hybrids of another source, whether it be a wolf, pariah, jackal, or dingo.” 393
Mankind, zoologically, must be governed by the same laws which
regulate animals generally; and if the above propositions apply to
other animals, no reason can be adduced in science why the races of
men should be made an exception. The mere prolificacy, whether
of human or of animal races, cannot therefore be received per se as
proof of common origin in respect to either.
After the lapse of so many centuries; or, to repeat Prichard’s language,
chiliads of years, since the last Creation, it would be strange,
indeed did not many difficulties surround the.question of hybridity:
but one thing seems certain, viz., that as regards unity or plurality
of origin, mankind, together with all our domestic animals, stand on
precisely the same footing. The origin of our horses, dogs, cattle,
sheep, goats, hogs, &c., no less than that of humanity, is wholly unknown
; nor can science yet .determine from how many primal creative
centres, or from how many pairs, each may have originated. Our
Chapter I., on the Geographical Distribution of Animals, has detailed
(what is now conceded by naturalists whose authority is decisive),
that, so far from a supposititious common centre of origin for all
organized beings on our globe, there are in reality many specific
centres or zoological provinces, in which the fauna and flora of each
are exclusively peculiar.394 The present volume establishes, through
evidences varied as they are novel, that history finds the different
races of mankind everywhere under circumstances which lead irresistibly
to the conclusion, that humanity obeys the same laws which
preside over the terrestrial distribution of other organized beings.
“ A principal cause [well observes Jaequinot] of varieties among domestic animals is, the
blending of dissimilar species among themselves; and it is this powerful agency which has
contributed in the largest degree to obscure and entangle the question of the varieties of
mgn and. of domestic &mm{ils.
Passing over, as non-essential to the point immediately before us,
the numerous examples illustrative of hybridity, in Dr. Morton’s first
and second degrees, we shall throw together a few of the more prominent
instances of his third and fourth, in their direct bearings upon
the plurality of the human species, in order to exemplify the question
at issue. .
E q u ine H y b r id s .
The genus equus (horse) is divided by Cuvier into five species; v iz .: the horse (equus
. caballus) ; the dzigguetai {eq. hemonius); the ass (eg. asinus) ; the zebra (eq. zebra)',
the couagga {eq. quaccha) ; the onagga, or dauw {eq. monlanus).
So.far as experiments prove, these all breed freely inter se; but the degrees of fertility
among their various hybrid offspring, are matters yet to be determined.
Our common mules, or progeny of the ass and the mare, are the best known hybrids,"
and they are never prolific with each other; but there are a few instances recorded
where mules have produced offspring when crossed on the parent stocks: such accidents
being, as even Herodotus observed,395 more common in hot climates than in cold.
The Hinny—
Offspring of the horse and she-ass—is rarely seen in the United States (but, we are
told, is more frequent in Egypt, and in the Levant; where some hinnies are said to
be even handsome): being a small, refractory, and (for draught) a comparatively useless
animal, there is no practical object in our breeding them. I have seen one example in
Mobile, very like a dwarfed, mean horse. The horse’s likeness here greatly predominated:
the head and ears were small, and precisely like its father’s ; the legs and feet
were slender and small, like those of the mother; and the tail, as in the ass, was lank,
with little hair. In the common mule, the head, on the contrary, resembles the ass.
Judging by this example alone, it would seem as if the type of the sire predominated
in hybrids. Such probable law, according to my observations, applies in some degree
to the human hybrid. Ex. gr., when the pure white man is crossed on the Negress,
the head of their mulatto child ordinarily resembles more the father than the mother;
but where a Negro man has been coupled with a white woman, in their offspring the
color, the features, and the hair of the Negro father greatly preponderate. We cannot
state, from observation, what may be the grade of intellect in the latter hybrid; but
in a common mulatto the degree of intelligence is absolutely higher than in the full-
blooded Negroes. About this deduction no dispute exists among medical practitioners
in our Southern States, where means of verification are peculiarly abundant.
Not only do the female ass and the male onagga breed together, but a male offspring
of this cross, with a mare, produces an animal more docile than either parent, and
combining the best physical qualities, such as strength, speed, &c.; whence the ancients
preferred the onagga to the ass for the production of mules.396 This opinion,
Mr. Gliddon says, is still prevalent in Egypt; and is acted upon .more particularly in
Arabia, Persia, &c., where the gour, or wild ass, still roams the desert. Cuvier had
seen the cross between the ass and the zebra, as well as between the female zebra and
the horse.
An important point should be borne in mind,- v iz .: that the ass is not the proximate,
or nearest species, of the genus equus, compared with the horse; but that place Cuvier
assigns to the eq. hemonius. Bell and Gray are even disposed to place the ass in a dis