Two beliefs about such unions are more or less prevalent among white men in the regions where they not infrequently occur. Neither of these beliefs is supported by anything like conclusive evidence. The one is that such unions lead to the production of relatively infertile offspring; the mixed breed or stock is said to die out after a few (some seven or eight) generations. It is, however, the fact that the circumstances under which this occurs suggest that it is not due to a natural and necessary infertility. The other assertion is that the offspring of parents–one of white race and the other of black, yellow or brown–tend by some strange fatality to inherit the bad qualities of both races and the good qualities of neither. This is a case to which must be applied the saying, "Give a dog a bad name and hang him." The white man in North America, in India, and in New Zealand desires the increase and prosperity of his own race. Like the fancier set on the production of certain breeds of domesticated animals, he has no toleration for a "mongrel." In so far as it is true that miscegenation (marriage of white and coloured race) produces a stock which rapidly dies out–this is due to the adverse conditions, the opposition and hostility to which the mixed race is exposed by the attitude of the dominant white race. To the same cause is due the development of ignoble and possibly dangerous characteristics in the unfortunate offspring of these marriages more frequently than in those who find their natural place and healthy up-bringing either in the white or the coloured sections of the community. The "half-breed" is in some countries inexorably rejected by the race of his or her white parent and forced to take up an equivocal association with the coloured race.