Half-breeds

“ Of course, if when a reserve is chosen, a white man had already settled there, his rights must be respected. The rights and interests of the whites and half-breeds are as dear to the Queen as those of the Indians. ”

“ LIEUT.-GOVERNOR MORRIS--"The Company have a right to have certain lands granted them by the Queen, who will do what is fair and just for the Company, for the Indians, for the Half-breeds, and for the whites. She will make no distinction. Whatever she promises she will carry out. The Company are are nothing to her except that they are carrying on trade in this country, and that they are subjects to her just as you are. You ask then why I went to the Company's house? I came here not at my own pleasure. I am not so strong as you are. ”

“ The astonishment of the Company's servants can be imagined, when upon looking out one fine morning, they beheld a band of swarthy half-breeds, captained by Orkneymen, rearing premises adjacent to their own, and bidding defiance to the ancient charter of the Honourable Hudson's Bay Company. They were told by their superiors not to be alarmed; the scheme of their rivals would not succeed any more than had those of the Quebec companies who a century before had sought to penetrate overland to the Bay. The company could always undersell them then ”

“ Without unnecessarily multiplying charges it appears now by your own letters that you were making every preparation to renew the same atrocities this year, if possible on a more extensive scale, collecting the Half-Breeds from points still more distant than before and endeavoring to influence both their rage and avarice by every means in yr. power. You even breathe the pious wish that the Pilleurs may be excited against us here saying “they may make a very good booty if they only go cunningly to work.” ”

“ On one occasion, having continued to float at night, after the moon was down, they ran under a great snag, or sunken tree, with dry branches above the water. These caught the mast, while the boat swung round, broadside to the stream, and began to fill with water. Nothing saved her from total wreck, but cutting away the mast. She then drove down the stream, but left one of the unlucky half-breeds clinging to the snag, like a monkey to a pole. ”

“ Round after round was fired from the big gun, while volleys peeled forth from the little ones, but the Half-breeds and Indians who were ambushed in the buildings in the right and in the bluffs on the left poured in such a deathly flank fire that it was realized that in order to dislodge them from the position they held would cost too many valuable lives, and it was decided to retire. A number of civilians had already been brought down, while Con. Gibson had dropped dead with a bullet through his breast while passing ammunition to the big gun, and several police had already been wounded. ”

“ Practically all our views on the subject of "races" and their inter-breeding are derived from our observation of the immense number and range of "races" and "breeds" produced by man—as farmer, fancier, and horticulturist. It has been generally received as a rule, that the various races produced in the farm or garden by breeding from a species, will inter-breed freely, and produce offspring which are fertile. ”

“ The result of their combined action is to produce flowers intermediate in color.
When the hybrids mature and their germ cells (eggs or pollen) ripen, each carries only one of these factors, either the red or the white, but not both. In other words, the two factors that have been brought together in the hybrid separate in its germ cells. Half of the egg cells are white bearing, half red bearing. Half of the pollen cells are white bearing, half red bearing. Chance combinations at fertilization give the three classes of individuals of the second generation. ”

“ This kind of variation in cases where offspring are produced by sexual propagation is attributed to the fact that the thing propagated proceeds from two organisms of different sexes and temperaments. Breeders of our domestic animals take advantage of this tendency to variation, to produce such varieties as are most desirable; and, indeed, for that matter, to obtain new varieties by crossing breeds. Sometimes this tendency to variation acts in the most remarkable and unaccountable manner, and because naturalists can assign no reason for it, they have called it "spontaneous variation." ”

“ He also informs me that pure white beasts of either sex are so well known by experienced breeders to be comparatively infertile together, that they are never used for breeding purposes, so that "in some parts of the country, where a tendency to sterility had become so confirmed in the white race that they utterly died out," only the coloured breeds are now to be found. ”

“ When these masquerading hybrids are bred together, a quarter of their progeny are red, like one of their grandparents, and three quarters are black, like the other, but of the black ones only a third are genuinely black; the others are masqueraders—hybrids, like the roans, although they pretend to be otherwise. ”

“ Offspring from a cross between two species or varieties may in the first or in a succeeding generation revert in various degrees by bud-variation to their parent-forms; and this reversion or segregation of character may affect the whole flower, fruit, or leaf-bud, or only the half or smaller segment, or a single organ. In some cases this segregation of character apparently depends on some {406}incapacity of union rather than on reversion, for the flowers or fruit which are first produced display by segments the characters of both parents. ”

“ It is not yet positively determined that these cross-breeds will procreate their species in a natural way, nor even that they will be the improvement, which has been hoped, but that they can be bred artificially there is no further doubt. ”

“ When the new breed has spread widely, it gives rise to new strains and sub-breeds, and the best of these succeed and spread, supplanting other and older breeds; and so always onwards in the march of improvement. ”

“ This strong tendency in crossed breeds to revert has given rise to endless discussions in how many generations after a single cross, either with a distinct breed or merely with an inferior animal, the breed may be considered as pure, and free from all danger of reversion. No one supposes that less than three generations suffices, and most breeders think that six, seven, or eight are necessary, and some go to still greater lengths. ”

“ The black form of the female was regarded for a long while as a distinct species, until by the test of breeding it was ascertained that some eggs laid by yellow females produced black females, and that, conversely, eggs laid by black females often produced yellow females. ”

“ In other cases it is only possible to pick out the individual plants which breed true by growing their seed and observing how it behaves. If it produces progeny all of which are like the plant from which the seed was obtained, that plant is a fixed type and will breed true continuously in the future. The final result of the experiment was to obtain in three years from the time the cross was made, four fixed types which subsequent experience has shown breed true continuously, a long eared bearded type, a short eared beardless type, a long eared beardless type and a short eared bearded type. ”

“ First crosses between forms known to be varieties, or sufficiently alike to be considered as varieties, and their mongrel offspring, are very generally, but not quite universally, fertile. Nor is this nearly general and perfect fertility surprising, when we remember how liable we are to argue in a circle with respect to varieties in a state of Nature; and when we remember that the greater number of varieties have been produced under domestication by the selection of mere external differences, and not of differences in the reproductive system. ”

“ Nevertheless I believe that in all these experiments the fertility has been diminished by an independent cause, namely, from close interbreeding. I have collected so large a body of facts, showing that close interbreeding lessens fertility, and, on the other hand, that an occasional cross with a distinct individual or variety increases fertility, that I cannot doubt the correctness of this almost universal belief amongst breeders. Hybrids are seldom raised by experimentalists in great numbers ”

“ The Seed is for the most part indifferent as to the two Sexes, and if it happens to meet with a Ball or Egg in the Horns of the Womb that is full of Spirits, and includes a hot, dry, and close Matter, it will impregnate so as to produce a Boy; but if the Seed meets with a Ball or Egg, not hot nor dry or fill'd with Spirits, tho' it will animate it, yet 'tis with less strength, so as a Girl will be produc'd. ”

“ That they are not quite sterile, and that the whole case is widely different from that of old females assuming masculine characters, is evident from several of these hen-like sub-breeds having been long propagated. ”

“ It is obvious that if half the germ-cells of the hybrid form are of the type B then half the progeny will be of the BW type, which is blue, and the other half will be of the WW type, which is white. In the same way if we mate a hybrid and a black fowl, half of the progeny will be black and half will be blue, that is, there could only be WB and BB types. ”

“ Range.--Breeds in mountains of Idaho, Wyoming and Montana and winters south to Mexico.
White.
This species has the head and breast gray, the back brownish and the sides pinkish brown. They breed at high altitudes in the ranges, placing their nests of grasses under sods or overhanging rocks; their eggs are pinkish white before being blown and are spotted over the whole surface but more heavily at the large end with pale reddish brown and gray. ”

“ Both extremes seem to be barred in nature—namely, the inter-breeding of stocks so diverse in structure and quality as to be what we call "distinct species," and again the inter-breeding of individuals of the same immediate parentage or near cousinship. What seems to be favoured by the natural structure and qualities of the plant or the animal is that it shall only breed within a certain group—the species—and shall within that group avoid constant self-fertilization or fertilization by near cousins. ”

“ From this absolute zero of fertility, the pollen of different species, applied to the stigma of some one species of the same genus, yields a perfect gradation in the number of seeds produced, up to nearly complete, or even quite complete, fertility; so, in hybrids themselves, there are some which never have produced, and probably never would produce, even with the pollen of the pure parents, a single fertile seed ”

“ Formation of Seed—Fertilization.—In fertilization—the influence in flowering plants of the male-cell in the pollen tube upon the egg-cell in the ovule (see Botany) —there are many circumstances of importance horticulturally, to which, therefore, brief reference must be made. Flowers, generally speaking, are either self-fertilized, cross-fertilized or hybridized. Self-fertilization occurs when the pollen of a given flower affects the egg-cell of the same individual flower. Cross-fertilization varies both in manner and degree. ”

“ Now I have shown, and the result has been confirmed by other observers, that in order to obtain full fertility with these plants, it is necessary that the stigma of the one form should be fertilised by pollen taken from the stamens of corresponding height in another form. So that with dimorphic species two unions, which may be called legitimate, are fully fertile; and two, which may be called illegitimate, are more or less infertile. With trimorphic species six unions are legitimate, or fully fertile, and twelve are illegitimate, or more or less infertile. ”

“ Results of inbreeding with maize—crossing between different races or genotypes, if not too distantly related, results in a progeny which excels its parents in vitality, whereas crosses between individuals belonging to the same genotype engender no increase of vitality as compared with the parents. ”

“ Individual varieties are constantly being formed and again funded back into the common stock by cross-breeding. If the varieties thus formed be decided, the cross-breeding will strengthen the stock, and especially will preserve and increase its plasticity or tendency to variation. Finally, among the widely divergent varieties there is one affecting the reproductive248 organs of several individuals in such wise that they are infertile, or imperfectly fertile, with the parent stock, though perfectly fertile among themselves. These form a new species, which continue to increase indefinitely. ”

“ From the standpoint of heredity, however, the important consideration is to determine if these experimentally induced changes have been reflected on to the germ-cells so that they reappear in the offspring of the modified individuals.
It has been found that in some cases where male and female are of different color, the color of the female can be changed to that of the male by altering the conditions of temperature. In certain cases types can be changed by cold so that they resemble varieties of the same species found farther north, and by heat, varieties found farther south. ”

“ The recessives are pure like those of the last generation, but the dominants can, by further self-fertilization and cultivation of the seeds produced, be again shown to be made up of pure dominant and crossbreds in the same proportion of one dominant to two crossbreds. ”

“ Thus, when a black bean e. c. is crossed with a white bean, all the offspring in the first generation will be black but hybrids. When two of these hybrids are then crossed, the dominant color black will be represented by 75 per cent. of the offspring and the recessive color white by 25 per cent., i. e., the offspring in the second generation, although both parents are black, will be three-fourths black and one-fourth white. For the gamete of two hybrid parents is always pure. The zygote of two hybrid parents is either pure or hybrid. ”