The following cases from De Varigny are also very striking. The dwarf trees from Japan, for the most part conifers, which may be a hundred years old and not be more than three feet high, are in part the result “of mechanical processes which prevent the spreading of the branches, and in part of a starving process which consists in cutting most roots and in keeping the plant in poor soil.” As an example of the sudden appearance of a new variation the following case is interesting. A variety of begonia is recorded as having appeared quite suddenly at a number of places at the same time. In another case a narcissus which had met with adverse circumstances, and had then been supplied with a chemical manure in some quantity, began to bear double flowers. Amongst animals the following cases of the appearance of sudden variations are pointed out by De Varigny. “In Paraguay, during the last century (1770), a bull was born without horns, although his ancestry was well provided with these appendages, and his progeny was also hornless, although at first he was mated with horned cows. If the horned and the hornless were met in fossil state, we would certainly wonder at not finding specimens provided with semi-degenerate horns, and representing the link between both, and if we were told that the hornless variety may have arisen suddenly, we should not believe it and we should be wrong. In South America also, between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries the niata breed of oxen sprang into life, and this breed of bulldog oxen has thriven and become a new race. So in the San Paulo provinces of Brazil, a new breed of oxen suddenly appeared which was provided with truly enormous horns, the breed of franqueiros, as they are called. The mauchamp breed of sheep owes its origin to a single lamb that was born in 1828 from merino parents, but whose wool, instead of being curly like that of its parents, remained quite smooth. This sudden variation is often met with, and in France has been noticed in different herds.” The ancon race of sheep originated in 1791 from a ram born in Massachusetts having short crooked legs and a long back. From this one ram by crossing, at first with common sheep, the ancon race has been produced. “When crossed with other breeds the offspring, with rare exception, instead of being intermediate in character, perfectly resemble either parent; even one of twins has resembled one parent and the second the other.”