FXLIPSE AND PERSIMMON 163 



sires ; in Flying Fox, the race-horse sold at the 

 highest price at public auction ; and in Sceptre, 

 the only yearling that had ever cost /" 10,000. 

 The record times for the Two Thousand (1902), 

 Derby (1906), and St Leger (1906) were also 

 among the achievements which Eclipse blood 

 could claim ; and there is small wonder that it 

 has slowly been established as the best, not in 

 this country alone, but in Europe, the United States 

 and elsewhere. 



" An exact comparison between the skeletons of 

 Eclipse and Persimmon ought to produce certain 

 facts of value to the trained biologist, if he can only 

 be induced to make it. The difficulty in this, as in 

 so many kindred matters, is that the man of science 

 rarely appreciates exactly what the horse-breeder 

 wants to know, and the man who writes with know- 

 ledge about racing is too often completely ignorant 

 of the essential elements of science. The mere 

 fact, already mentioned, that this comparison, when 

 completed, will be actually the first of its kind is 

 significant enough. The most enlightened and 

 broad-minded of modern celebrities might legiti- 

 mately object to our digging up his great-great- 

 grandfather in order to compare that ancestral 

 framework with his own ; nor would the operation 

 lead to much even when the problems involved 

 were merely physical ; but inasmuch as the brain is 



