OUT-CROSSING. 141 
bad practice, but is likely to be attended with good results. Let him ask 
what horses have been the most remarkable of late years as stallions, and, 
with very few exceptions, he will find they were considerably in-bred. It 
has been remarked, that the Touchstone and Defence blood almost always 
hits with the Selim ; but it is forgotten that the one was already crossed 
with that horse, and the other with his brother Rubens. On the other 
hanJ, the Whisker blood in the Colonel has not succeeded so well, it 
being made up of much crossed and more distantly related particles, and 
therefore not hitting with the Selim and Castrel blood, like his cousins, 
Touchstone and Defence. It has, however, partially succeeded when 
in-bred to the Waxy and Buzzard blood, as in Chatham and Fugleman, 
who both reunite these three strains. The same applies to Coronation, 
who unites the Whalebone blood in Sir Hercules with that of Rubens in 
Ruby ; but as Waxy and Buzzard, the respective ancestors of all these 
horses, were both grandsons of Herod, and great-grandsons of Snap, it 
only strengthens the argument in favour of in-breeding. This conclusion 
is in accordance with the 14th and 15th axioms, which embody the state 
of our present knowledge of the theory of generation ; and if they are 
examined, they will be seen to bear upon the present subject, so as to lead 
one to advise the carrying out of the practice of in-and-in breeding to the 
same extent as has been found so successful in the instances which I have 
given. Purity of blood is intimately connected with the practice, because 
the nearer it is to one standard, the more unmixed it is, and by con- 
sequence the more fully it is represented in the produce. Hence, it is 
doubly needful to take care that this pure blood is of a good kind; because 
if bad, it will perpetuate its bad qualities just as closely as it would the 
good, or perhaps still more so.” 
I have nothing to add to these remarks ; and if I were to adduce the 
few instances in their support which can have occurred since 1855-6, 
when they were written, I should add little to the mass of evidence which 
I have already collected. An appeal to the past can only be answered in 
the way which I have recorded ; for the evidence of repeated success in 
resorting to the practice of in-breeding is too strong to be gainsaid. We 
will now consider whether the effects of an out-cross are of superior or 
equal value. 
OUT-CROSSING. 
BETWEEN IN-AND-IN BREEDING, which I have defined as the pairing of 
animals within the relationship of second cousins, and the opposite 
extreme of uniting those which are not at all allied in blood, there are 
many degrees ; but as, in the thoroughbred horse, there are scarcely two 
in the Stud-book which cannot be traced back to the same stock in one 
or more lines, we do not generally understand “a cross” to demand abso- 
lute distinctness of blood. For instance, Teddington is generally con: 
sidered as the result of as marked a cross as we ever meet with in the 
modern Stud-book. For five generations, the same name never appears 
in the pedigree tables of his sire and dam ; but in the sixth, we find the 
name of Sir Peter occur three times on the side of his sire, and twice on 
that of his dam, besides six other lines of Herod blood on the part of the 
sire, and eight on that of the dam. Here, therefore, there was a return 
to the original lines of blood, which had been in-bred twice each, after five 
successive departures from them as far as could be effected in this par- 
ticular kind of horse. These last are called “ crosses,” though not being 
exactly the reverse of in-breeding, for the reason, as I before remarked, 
