The trained eye of the gardener recognizes each hyacinth among hundreds of bulbs; of the shepherd, each sheep in his flock; of the Laplander, each reindeer crowded in his herd like ants on the anthill. In a flock of 1,000 sheep each mother can even recognize a variation in the _voice_ of her own lamb, all alike to _us_. Every part of an animal is subject to variations, not only in bodily structure, but also in habits and instincts, and these variations are large in amount, numerous and diverse in character. Many observations, experiments and measurements that have been made at various times attest the truth of this assertion. Not only do variations take place in animals and plants under domestication, but also in the wild state. =Illustrations of Heredity.= _Mental heredity_ can be illustrated by studying the genealogies of such persons as Aristotle, Goethe, Darwin, Coleridge, Milton, etc. Probably the Bach family, of Germany, supply one of the best illustrations of the inheritance of intellectual character that we know of. The record of this family begins in 1550, lasting through eight generations to 1800. For about two centuries it gave to the world musicians and singers of high rank. The founder was Weit Bach, a baker of Presburg, who sought recreation from his routine work in song and music. For nearly two hundred years his descendants, who were very numerous in Franconia, Thuringia, and Saxony, retained a musical talent, being all church singers and organists. When the members of the family had become very numerous and widely separated from one another, they decided to meet at a stated place once a year. Often more than a hundred persons—men, women and children—bearing the name of Bach were thus brought together. This family reunion continued until nearly the middle of the eighteenth century. In this family of musicians twenty-nine became eminent. _Inheritance of moral character_ is well established. Heredity, in its relation to crime and pauperism, has been thoroughly investigated by Mr. Dugdale in his most instructive little work entitled _The Jukes_. In this work the descendants of _one_ vicious and neglected girl are traced through a large number of generations. It reveals that a large proportion of the descendants of this woman became licentious, for, in the course of six generations, fifty-two per cent. of the females became harlots and twenty-three per cent. of the children were illegitimate. It shows also that there were seven times more paupers among the women than among the average women of the State, and nine times more paupers among the male descendants than among the average men of the State.