TO EVOLVE A MORE PERFECT RACE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 61, 14 December 1907, Page 4

TO EVOLVE A MORE PERFECT RACE.

Professor C. B. Davenport is aimui" to produce a cat which shall be white, blueeyed, deaf, long-haired, toilless' and polydactyl, or possessing superfluous toes. The experiment," if successful, will prove, he informs us, Unit science can absolutely control tlie development of a cat's physical characteristics. Now, the cat bears an exceedingly close resemblance, to man ill physical stricture and constitution, nm\ l therefore, it is liclicveu that it will at sonic future time be possible to control the physical development of man. This is tiie ultimate object of these remarkable experiments, stated in as simple (ino popular manner as possible, although the experts who arc engaged upon them would hesitate to elate tins object without many modifications which the Jayman would find it difficult to understand.

Scientific men may praline in the future a large-brained, broad shouldered, [ highly intellectual man—in fait, nil almost perfect man, combining all the best qualities of all (lie highest existing types of man and infinitely superior to any one of them. The lay reader will naturally wonder why the scientists should begin by set-kill" to produ.e the very remarkable type of oat mentioned. It is not because a white, blue-eyed, deaf, long-hciired, tailless polydactyl cat is any more valuable, intellectual, useful, or beautiful than an ordinary cat. It is because the combination of such remarkable qualities in a specially bred specimen would prove that their combination in one animnl was | the result of scientific manipulation. I If less strange but possibly more usefid characteristics, such as strength, tun" power, and keenness of scent, were aimed <it, there would be a possibility of arguing that their presence in the specially bred cat was the result of accident, but that could not be argued in the case of the experimental cat now contemplated. The aim of the experiments, then, at the present .stage is not so much to produce a perfect miiiwil as to prove how far scientific control is effective in producing a predetermined type of cat. l'rofessor Davenport, speaking of these experiments, says:—"lf characteristics are for the mast part inherited entire, ond can be combmed in various ways, like atoms of chemistry, it should be possible to obtain any desired combination." When the laws arc known and understood, it will be comparatively simple to apply them in the work of developing all other animals —including man —on similar predetermined lines. l'rofessor Duvcnport, in his selection of the cat, was governed mainly by the fecundity and structural organisation of the cat, for, aii has been pointed out, considered anatomically, the cat in majty wuys Tesmblcs main, and success in obtaining a desired combination of cliaractenstics in the one will prove the possibility of aclucving a like result in the oilier.

Of the numerous kittens already produced several are maTkod by one or more 01 the eought-for pe-uliurities, and it ia by keeping these qualities possessed in the sironguit degree and eliminating those not wantcdj that lie experts to present to the world a new ra e or epciius of cat. KuL Professor Davenport dees not confine bis studies of inheritance in domestic annuals t:> cite alone. When beginning ins experiments he ul.so provided himself with sevend wild mid domestic fowl, with diieks, pigeons, canaries, goldfinches, Irish sheep, goate —numbering among them two five-iiippled ewes and one sixnippled lsmb--and with Jersey and Holsiein cattle. With all these he is experimenting on lines similar, ficm a scientific standpoint, to those lie lias laid out for himself with the family of cats.—Science Sittings.