140 THE HORSE. 
well taken, and the deductions such as can scarcely be denied.” In 
support of this opinion, he adduces several instances in which a “hit” 
has occurred in America by carrying out the last axiom in the preceding 
list. Thus he says, at page 260 of his second volume, “TI think myseli 
that it is made clear by recent events, and that such is shown to be the 
case by the tables of racing stock given at the close of the first volume,* 
that, previous to the last quarter of a century, the American turfman was 
probably breeding in too much of the old Virginian and South Carolina 
ante-revolutionary stock, and that the American racehorse has been 
improved by the recent cross of modern English blood. It is also worthy 
of remark, that every one of the four most successful of modern English 
stallions in this country which have most decidedly hit with our old stock 
—Leviathan, Sarpedon, Priam, and Glencoe—all trace back to several 
crosses of Herod blood ; Glencoe and Priam not less than three or four 
several times each to crosses of Partner blood, and directly several times 
over to the Godolphin Barb, or Arabian, which are the very strains from 
which our Virginian stock derives its peculiar excellence. It is farther 
worthy of remark, that two stallions have decidedly hzt with the imported 
English mare Reel, as proved by her progeny, Lecompte and Prioress, 
respectively to Boston and Sovereign. Now Reel, through Glencoe, 
Catton, Gohanna, and Smolensko, has herself no less than seven distinct 
strains of Herod blood. Boston, as every one knows, traces directly 
through Timoleon, Sir Archy, Diomed, Florizel, to Herod. Sovereign, 
also, through Emilius, his sire, has Herod on both lines as his paternal and 
maternal g.g.g. sire; and Tartar, the sire of Herod, a third time, in one 
remove yet farther back. Now this would go to justify Stonehenge’s 
opinion that the recurrence to the same original old strains of blood, when 
such strains have been sufficiently intermixed and rendered new by other 
more recent crosses, is not injurious, but of great advantage ; and that, on 
the whole, it is better, ceteris paribus, to do such than to try experiments 
with extreme out-crosses.” 
IN-AND-IN BREEDING. 
WHEN ANY NEW BREED of animals is first introduced into this country, 
in-and-in breeding (by which is to be understood the pairing of relations 
within the degree of second cousins twice or more in succession) can 
scarcely be avoided; and hence, when first the value of the Arab was 
generally recognised, the breeder of the racehorse of those days could not 
well avoid having recourse to the plan. Thus we find, in the early pages 
of the Stud-book, constant instances of very close in-breeding, often carried 
to such an extent as to become incestuous. The result was our modern 
thoroughbred ; but it does not follow that because the plan answered in 
producing that celebrated kind of animal, it will be equally successful in 
keeping up the breed in its original perfection. In “ British Rural Sports,” 
I have given a series of examples of success resulting from each plan, 
which I shall not now repeat, merely remarking that the opinion which 
I formed from an attentive examination of them remains unchanged. This 
opinion was expressed in the following words :— 
“Tf the whole of the pedigrees to which I have drawn attention are 
attentively examined, the breeder can have no hesitation in coming to the 
conclusion, that in-breeding, carried out once or twice, is not only not a 
* These tables I have extensively drawn upon at pages 37 et seq., correcting them 
where they required it. 
