During gestation she manifested great uneasiness of mind, lest the birth of a mulatto offspring should disclose her conduct....

It so happened that her negro husband possessed a sixth digit on each hand, but there was no peculiarity of any kind in the white man, yet when the mulatto child was born it actually presented the deformity of a supernumerary finger.' Taruffi, the celebrated Italian teratologist, in speaking of the subject, says: 'Our knowledge of this strange fact is by no means recent for Fienus, in 1608, said that most of the children born in adultery have a greater resemblance to the legal than to the real father'-- an observation that was confirmed by the philosopher Vanini and by the naturalist Ambrosini.

From these observations comes the proverb: 'Filium ex adultera excusare matrem a culpa.' Osiander has noted telegony in relation to moral qualities of children by a second marriage.

Harvey said that it has long been known that the children by a second husband resemble the first husband in features mind, and disposition.

He then gave a case in which this resemblance was very well marked.