198 SELECTION. Chap. XX. 



(( 



Two men whose authority on such subjects was held in 

 *' great esteem, the Duke of Newcastle and Sir John Fenwick, 

 *' pronounced that the meanest hack ever imported from 

 " Tangier would produce a finer progeny thau could be 

 *' expected from the best sire of our native breed. They 

 " would not readily have believed that a time would come 

 " when the princes and nobles of neighbouring lands would 

 " be as eager to obtain horses from England as ever the 

 " English had been to obtain horses from Barbary." 



The London dray-horse, which differs so much in appear- 

 ance from any natural species, and which from its size has so 

 astonished many Eastern princes, was probably formed by the 

 heaviest and most powerful animals having been selected 

 during many generations in Flanders and England, but 

 without the least intention or expectation of creating a horse 

 such as we now see. If we go back to an early period of 

 history, we behold in the antique Greek statues, as Schaaff- 

 hausen has remarked, '^^ a horse equally unlike a race or dray 

 horse, and differing from any existing breed. 



The results of unconscious selection, in an early stage, are 

 well shown in the diiference between the flocks descended 

 from the same stock, but separately reared by careful breeders. 

 Youatt gives an excellent instance of this fact in the sheep 

 belonging to Messrs. Buckley and Burgess, which " have been 

 " purely bred from the original stock of Mr. Bake well for 

 *' upwards of fifty years. There is not a suspicion existing in 

 " the mind of any one at all acquainted with the subject that 

 " the owner of either flock has deviated in any one instance 

 *' from the pure blood of Mr. Bakewell's flock ; yet the differ- 

 *' ence between the sheep possessed by these two gentlemen is 

 " so great, that they have the appearance of being quite 

 " different varieties." ^^ I have seen several analos^ous and 

 well marked cases with pigeons : for instance, I had a family 

 of barbs descended from those long bred by Sir J. Sebright, 

 and another family long bred by another fancier, and the two 

 families plainly differed from each other. Xathusius — and a 

 more competent witness could not be cited — observes that, 

 though the Shorthorns are remarkably uniform in appearance 

 ^^ ' Ueber Besfandigkeit der Arten. '^ Youatt on Sheep, p. 315. 



