CAVALRY HORSES. 1G9 



The only method by which the highest type of the horse can be produced 

 is to select animals of both sexes that have proved their qualities of blood and 

 muscle upon the race course, and whose ancestors for certainly not less than 

 five generations have also proved victors in severe contests. The breeding 

 must be conducted under the most auspicious circumstances of time, place, age, 

 climate, and assimilation, or there may be many failures, notwithstanding the 

 proven excellence of the parents ; and assimilation is another subject to be 

 gravely considered. 



In the stock-raising regions of Texas, where the horse is permitted to have 

 his own way for the greater part of the year, and to continue the habits of his 

 untamed ancestors, so far as his instincts may direct, each stallion is allowed a 

 certain number of mares. He is grand Turk, and this is his harem. Free to 

 follow these instincts, he keeps his mares entirely to himself. No other stal- 

 lion can approach one of them, and, when some hundreds of mares are turned 

 out of a coi red together, each seeks out her own stallion, and goes with him. 

 If any iu the bustle or confusion of the moment gets among the wrong party, 

 or in a strange manada, her lord and master dashes into the crowd, seeks her 

 out, and drives her to his stamping ground ; and in this untrammelled condition 

 the stallion strenuously objects to an incestuous cross. As soon as his fillies 

 reach the age of a year or eighteen months, he drives them from the manada, 

 and, while he remembers them, will have nothing to do with them. The result 

 of such breeding would be fatal to the qualities of the very finest, purest blood, 

 rendering it scrofulous, and liable to all the diseases in the veterinary surgeon's 

 materia incdica. No cross should ever be allowed nearer than a cousinship, 

 and the stallion in his native state recognizes this law. In brief, he associates 

 only with mares whose temperament and character assimilate with his own, 

 and the breed thus perpetuated improves with the increase of each year. 



Dr. Harvey has stated that as the blood of the mother circulates in the veins 

 %)f the foetus, passed in for its nutrition and development by process of absorp- 

 tion and assimilation, so tlie blood of the fretus must in some degree coramin- 

 • gle with that in the mother's veins, forming a sort of general circulation. 

 Further, as the foetal blood is in part the blood of the male parent, and pos- 

 sesses elements and characteristics de-rived from him, the mother is, so to speak, 

 innoculated with his blood and his peculiarities, Avhicli are, to use his own lan- 

 guage, " so engrafted in the system of the female as to be communicable by her 

 to any offspring she may subsequently have by other males." 



McGillivray, the veterinary surgeon, declares that the pure bred female, in 

 becoming pregnant to a less pure male, is tainted de facto, and remains a cross 

 ever after, incapable of producing pure offspring. 



These theories with that of imagination, before stated, cover the whole 

 ground, and fully account for the phenomena so often observed by all breeders 

 of thorough-breds producing mongrel foals. But Dr. Harvey's idea, if sound, 

 is full of import from another point of view. The more frequently two animals 

 breed together the oftener the blood of the male mingles with and assimilates 

 to that of the female. An equalization, a harmony exists between them, for 

 the same blood animates the pulses of both, and, therefore, an improvement 

 occurs yearly in the produce of the horses of Texas. It is not impossible that 

 this is the reason why old married people who have had many children so often 

 grow to resemble each other strikingly. Breeding from one mare by different 

 stallions is sometimes attended with success, but it should never be encouraged 

 after the first decided nick. The mare Cyprian had Joe Lovel, Songstress, 

 Meteora, and Cypriana, all by different stallions ; yet it is probable that their 

 merits Avere due to the extraordinary vital and nervous power of their dam. 

 The owner of Phryne played the wiser part in getting six celebrated racers 

 from her by one horse. Pantaloon. Four famous colts were got from Crucifix 

 by Touchstone; and while the thorough-bred Gleueoe and Dick Andrews 



