BREEDING. 191 



animal he wishes to breed ; then provides himself 

 with fitting material for a start, and attends to a few 

 simple laws, which are all that is commonly known 

 at present upon a subject shrouded in obscurity 

 throughout. The greatest difficulty in commencing 

 breeding, unless circumstances favour unusually, is 

 the obtaining females of worth. Rash policy is it to 

 breed from any mare you may chance to have, even 

 though she may have been the cleverest of hunters, 

 on the chance of a good card turning up ; though f 

 thanks to her planet, she may be handsome enough 

 herself, she may still come of a casual cross, the 

 eccentricity of which will float up in the second 

 generation. Neither Bakewell nor Jonas Webb would 

 sell a ewe in England. The Bedouin clings by his 

 mare, and will ride off from a laden purse. Before 

 this, too, a blank cheque has failed to tempt R Booth 

 to part with a prize cow of his best strain. When 

 you consider how much depends upon the female — in 

 fact, nearly all but external shape, wherein the form 

 of the sire is mainly followed — and when you calcu- 

 late the time, the pains, the cost each eminent breeder 

 has expended in establishing his favourite type, to 

 sell the main element of the compound, even for a 

 startling figure, would, at the end, be simply like 

 dissolving pearls in a goblet for a single reckless 

 draught. 



How much is altogether due to the female we 

 scarcely know. Orton, in his suggestive Essay, is of 

 opinion that the outward shape and action are due, 

 as a rule, to the sire, the internal parts and the con- 

 stitution to the dam. I have mislaid his pamphlet, 



