Subsequently I found that all this labour, both on Mr. Galton's part and our own, was simply thrown away--not because it yielded only negative results, but because it did not serve as a crucial experiment at all. The material chosen was unserviceable for the purpose, inasmuch as rabbits, even when crossed in the ordinary way, never throw intermediate characters. Needless to say, had I been aware of this fact before, I should never have repeated Mr. Galton's experiments--nor, indeed, would he have originally performed them had he been aware of it. So all this work goes for nothing. The research must begin all over again with some other animals, the varieties of which when crossed do throw intermediate characters. Therefore I have this year made arrangements for again repeating the experiments in question--only, instead of rabbits, using well-marked varieties of dogs. A renewed attack of illness, however, has necessitated the surrender of this research to other hands, with a consequent delay in its commencement. My ignorance of the unfortunate peculiarity displayed by rabbits in not throwing intermediate characters has led to a further waste of time in another line of experiment. On finding that mammalian ovaries did not admit of being grafted, it seemed to me that the next best thing to try would be the transplantation of fertilized ova from one variety to another, for the purpose of ascertaining whether, if a parturition should take place under such circumstances, gestation by the uterine mother would affect the characters of the ovum derived from the ovarian mother--she, of course, having been fertilized by a male of her own variety. Of course it was necessary that both the mothers should be in season at about the same time, and therefore I again chose rabbits, seeing that in the breeding season they are virtually in a chronic state of "heat." I selected Himalayans and Belgian hares, because they are well-marked varieties, breed true, and in respect of colour are very different from one another. It so happened that while I was at work upon this experiment, it was also being tried, unknown to me, by Messrs. Heape and Buckley who, curiously enough, employed exactly the same material. They were the first to obtain a successful result. Two fertilized ova of the Angora breed having been introduced into the fallopian tube of a Belgian hare, developed there in due course, and gave rise to two Angora rabbits in no way modified by their Belgian hare gestation[83]. [83] _Proc. R. S. 1890_, vol. xlviii. p. 457. It should be stated that the authors do not here concern themselves with any theory of heredity.