1908. The British Association in Dublin. 243 



IN-BREEDING, MENDELISM. AND THE ELUCIDATION OF 



LIVE-vSTOCK HISTORY. 



BY PROF. J. WII.SON, M.A., B.SC. 



(i.) Having discovered the animal or plant desired, it should be the 

 breeder's chief endeavour to keep his stock pure ; and in order to do so 

 he must give great consideration to the question of in-breeding. 



(2.) Indeed, it may be necessary to revise the Darwinian pronounce- 

 ment on iu-breedii:g. It is a bold thing to suggest that Darwin's ideas 

 about in-breeding may be wrong; but so many of our breeds of domestic 

 animals have been brought to the position they occup}' by severe in- 

 breeding that the subject requires, at least, reconsideration. If we look 

 round among wild polygamous animals, we find in-breeding the rule 

 rather than the exception. Deer are a good example. The strongest 

 male retains command of a flock until he is ousted by some other animal 

 who is in all probability a younger brother or a son of the previous 

 master male. 



The greatest stock-breeder yet known in Britain was Robert Bakewell, 

 a Leicestershire farmer, who was born in 1725 and died in 1795. He 

 established the Leicester long-horned breed of cattle and the Leicester 

 breed of sheep, and he also took a hand at improving the breed of horses 

 we now call the "Shire." The pedigree of his greatest bull, called D 

 (born about 1772), is known and shows BakewelVs procedure. Bakewell 

 searched the country for the very best animals he could find, and bred 

 from them ; then unable to find other animals as good, bred from those 

 in his possession. 



D's pedigree : — 



A Westmoreland bull Twopenny 



A cow from Canley called Comely^ Twopenny ^Their daughter^D 



Comely 



Bakewell's D was the sire of a still better bull called Shakspear, born 

 about 177S, belonging to Mr. Fowler, of RoUright, in Oxfordshire. 

 Shakspear's dam was also a daughter of Twopenny. 



Marshall writes of these tw^o bulls: — " D is the sire of Shakspear, by 

 another daughter of the same bull, and is probably the most robust in- 

 dividual of the longhorned breed ; while D himself, at the age of 12 or 13 

 years, is most active and higher mettled than bulls in general are at 3 

 or 4 years old.'' 



One of the Collings, the early breeders of the Shorthorns, was a pupil 

 with Bakewell while Hugh Watson, the firstof Aberdeen Angus breeders, 

 was a pupil with one of the Collings. These breeders employed Bake- 

 well's methods ; copied them almost to the last detail. 



(3.) Mendelism is evidently going to be of great service to the his- 

 torian of live stock. For instance, history lells that the shorthorn breed 

 of cattle is a combination of two races — a red race and a white. Mendel- 

 ism confirms this, since the cross of red with white among shorthorns 

 gives reds, w^hites and roans (hybrids) in the proportion required by 

 *' Mendel's Law." History also shows that the Dexter Kerry is a cross 



