From the following peculiarities of structure being inheritable and appearing only when the animal is full-grown--namely, general size, tallness (not consequent on the tallness of the infant), fatness either over the whole body, or local; change of colour in hair and its loss; deposition of bony matter on the legs of horses; blindness and deafness, that is changes of structure in the eye and ear; gout and consequent deposition of chalk-stones; and many other diseases{470}, as of the heart and brain, &c., &c.; from all such tendencies being I repeat inheritable, we clearly see that the germinal vesicle is impressed with some power which is wonderfully preserved during the production of infinitely numerous cells in the ever changing tissues, till the part ultimately to be affected is formed and the time of life arrived at. We see this clearly when we select cattle with any peculiarity of their horns, or poultry with any peculiarity of their second plumage, for such peculiarities cannot of course reappear till the animal is mature. Hence, it is certainly _possible_ that the germinal vesicle may be impressed with a tendency to produce a long-limbed animal, the full proportional length of whose limbs shall appear only when the animal is mature{471}. {470} In the _Origin_, Ed. i. the corresponding passages are at pp. 8, 13, 443, vi. pp. 8, 15, 610. In the _Origin_, Ed. i. I have not found a passage so striking as that which occurs a few lines lower "that the germinal vesicle is impressed with some power which is wonderfully preserved, &c." In the _Origin_ this _preservation_ is rather taken for granted. {471} <In the margin is written> Aborted organs show, perhaps, something about period <at> which changes supervene in embryo.