38 



impracticable, unless you begin with whole sisters, and even 

 then it is only an approximation. AVith old stations, when 

 all the females become more nearly allied, the young rams, 

 when first put in, must be regarded as breeding with 

 their aunts, and producing a sensible effect upon the female 

 progeny. 



The effects of breeding brothers with sisters, as in pedigrees 

 3 and 6, must again presuppose all the ewes to be sisters, for 

 if not sisters, vnu will find by looking at pedigree 6 that 

 instead of A^cbig and Bi6Ai<5 you get Ai^B^ D'^ FG or its 

 equivalent ; results so different from those of pedigree No. 1 

 that if tliat be the main principle which asserts itself, and if 

 that be the beneficial principle of in-and-in breeding, I doubt 

 if this be also beneficial. 



In pedigree No. 1 you simplify and intensify. In pedi- 

 grees Nos. 3 and 6 you add continually equal increments to 

 each side, and it seems to me strive to intensify the crossing, 

 and not to eliminate a type. 



I am, therefore, forced to believe that pedigree No. 1 is the 

 beneficial principle — not because I see that it carries out any 

 theory of my own, but because it is so much tho prevailing 

 and progressively prevailing eft^ect that I conclude, if it were 

 bad in principle, no in-and-in breeding on the present loose 

 system would have been possible without deterioration. 



If, therefore, I am asked what deductions I draw from the 

 preceding figures, I would say that I am a believer in the 

 indestructildlity of type or organisation, but that I do not 

 believe those original types to have been inferior but superior 

 to the highest specimens now extant. I do not believe the 

 original Dishley Leicester sheep to have been an awkward, 

 ungainly, ugly wretch, with no good qualities of any kind. 

 Mr. Bakewell, doubtless, found such an animal, but I believe 

 that that was not the original type ; it was the result of 

 centuries — nay, thousands of years — of mongrelization, of bad 

 impressions and conditions, and of non-observance of the law 

 of in-and-in and like with like. 



In every animal, I believe, a certain type resides, the charac- 

 teristics of which are confused or brought out by the most 

 recent female conjunctions. The male blood I regard as the 

 indestructible organisation, and the impressions of the female, 

 whether for good or evil, more or less temporary. But I do 

 not look on female blood as a thing apart. I regard her 

 only as the recipient, and as the conduct and channel for 

 other male blood. When A marries B we must enquire who 

 was B's father, for it is his blood, and B's father's father's 

 and mother's father's blood that, if it appear, is impressed on 

 A and B's offspring, and as it may be discordant or harmonious 



