Peculiarities of structure have a double interest, as illustrating both variation and persistence. We usually find them introduced without any apparent cause into a family, and afterwards they remain as hereditary traits, first inherited regularly, then intermittently, and eventually, in most cases, dying out or becoming so exceptional that their occurrence is not regarded as an hereditary peculiarity. Montaigne mentions that in the family of Lepidus, at Rome, there were three, not successively but by intervals, that were born with the same eye covered with a cartilage. At Thebes there was a family almost every member of which had the crown of the head pointed like a lance-head; all whose heads were not so formed being regarded as illegitimate. A better authenticated case is that of the Lambert family. The peculiarity affecting this family appeared first in the person of Edward Lambert, whose whole body, except the face, the palms of the hands, and the soles of the feet, was covered with a sort of shell consisting of horny excrescences. He was the father of six children, all of whom, so soon as they had reached the age of six weeks, presented the same peculiarity. Only one of them lived. He married, and transmitted the peculiarity to all his sons. For five generations all the male members of the Lambert family were distinguished by the horny excrescences which had adorned the body of Edward Lambert. A remarkable instance of the transmission of anomalous characteristics is found in the case of Andrian Jeftichjew, who, three or four years ago, was exhibited with his son Fedor Jeftichjew in Berlin and Paris. They were called in Paris _les hommes-chiens_, or dog-men, the father's face being so covered with hair as to present a striking resemblance to the face of a Skye terrier. Andrian was thus described:--'He is about fifty-five years of age, and is said to have been the son of a Russian soldier. In order to escape the derision and the unkind usage of his fellow-villagers, Andrian in early life fled to the woods, where for some time he lived in a cave.