BREEDS AND THE PRINCIPLES OF BREEDING. 431 



9. That in seeking, by any method, to control the production of the sexes, we must 

 bring as many conditions (laws) as possible to favor our purpose, and carefully obviate all 

 known sources of fallacy, otherwise we may reach very unsatisfactory results and unfair con 

 clusions. Thus, while avoiding, as far as possible, the disturbing influences of the imagina 

 tion, and of animals that have shown an unconquerable disposition to produce one sex only, 

 and while securing the desired relative conditions of age, health, and vigor on the part of sire 

 and dam, we should attend to the necessary feeding, to the securing of early or late impreg 

 nation of the ovum, as the case may demand, and to any other circumstance that would 

 promise to influence the result.&quot; 



Numerous as are the theories advanced, and diverse as are the opinions entertained 

 respecting this subject, it is still involved in much mystery, and is seemingly one of the 

 secrets which Nature has thus far refused to fully disclose to man. The question that con- 

 cerns the securing of male or female offspring at will, is one of great interest and importance 

 to stock breeders, especially to breeders of high-class animals, and to owners of fancy strains 

 of blood, individuals of which command extravagant prices, and where it would be desirable 

 to secure a large preponderance of females, by which means valuable stock may be the more 

 speedily multiplied. It is to be hoped that as intelligence increases, and as this subject 

 becomes more thoroughly investigated and understood, information will be obtained which 

 shall lead to the establishment of definite and reliable rules for the breeder, by which he can 

 influence the sex of the offspring as desired. 



Influence of the First Impregnation on the Dam. The influence which the 

 sire has upon the dam on her first impregnation, extending as it frequently does to subsequent 

 impregnations by other males, is a mysterious one, and shows the importance of giving special 

 attention to the quality of the sire giving the first impregnation, especially where pure-bred 

 stock are desired. There seems to be an impression made upon the nervous system of the 

 dam in many instances by the first conception, that will cause the likeness of the first sire to 

 be enstamped upon the future progeny, irrespective of the quality of the males subsequently 

 used. Thus mares have been known to entail the likeness of the sire of her first colt upon 

 her colts for three or four generations, when bred to other horses. A well-known and 

 remarkable instance of this kind occurred in the breeding of an Arabian mare to a Quagga, 

 an animal resembling the Zebra. 



The Earl of Morton, being desirous of obtaining a breed between the horse and the 

 quagga, selected a young seven-eighths Arabian mare and a fine quagga male, and the pro 

 duce was a female hybrid. The same mare had afterwards a filly and then a horse-colt by a 

 fine black Arabian horse. Both resembled the quagga in the dark lines along the back, and 

 the stripes across the forehead, and the bars across the legs. In the filly the mane was short, 

 stiff, and upright, like that of the quagga; in the colt it was long, but so stiff as to arch 

 upwards, and hang clear of the sides of the neck. 



Mr. William Goodwin, veterinary surgeon to Her Majesty, states that several of the 

 mares in the royal stud, at Hampton Court, had foals in one year, which were by Actseon, but 

 which presented exactly the marks of the horse Colonel, a white hind-fetlock, for instance, 

 and a white mark or stripe on the face; and Actseon was perfectly free from white. The 

 mares had all bred from Colonel the previous year. 



Alexander Morrison, Esq., of Bognie, had a fine Clydesdale mare which, in 1843, was 

 served by a Spanish ass and produced a mule. She afterward had a colt by a horse, which 

 bore a very marked likeness to a mule seen at a distance, every one set it down at once as 

 a mule. The ears are nine and a half inches long, the girth not quite six feet, and stands 

 above sixteen hands high. The hoofs are so long and narrow that there is difficulty in 

 shoeing them, and the tail is thin and scanty. 



A pure Aberdeenshire heifer was served with a pure Teeswater bull, by which she had a 

 VOL. II. 25 



