Note 56 — Chapter XIII · INHERITANCE continued—REVERSION OF ATAVISM.

In his ‘Essays on Nat. Hist.,’ 1838, Mr. Hewitt gives analogous cases with hen-pheasants in ‘Journal of Horticulture,’ July 12, 1864, p. 37. Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, in his ‘Essais de Zoolog. Gen.’ (‘suites a Buffon,’ 1842, pp. 496-513), has collected such cases in ten different kinds of birds. It appears that Aristotle was well aware of the change in mental disposition in old hens. The case of the female deer acquiring horns is given at p. 513.