BREEDING. 195 



thousand pieces, every one symmetrically angular 

 with the original lump. In a state of nature each 

 species of living thing preserves its likeness. The 

 water-hen, simplex munditiis, there, flirting her tail 

 as she trips along the weedy ditch, how similar her 

 offspring grow up to herself. The gorgeous pheasant 

 on the clover by yon copse ; the red-crested linnet on 

 the spray ; the timid roe beside the loch ; how like 

 to themselves, how almost identical in shape, if not 

 size, their full-grown offspring. But it is not so 

 where the " 'prentice hand " of man interferes ; up- 

 setting for his convenience, as in the case of the 

 approved cylindrical shorthorn and Leicester form, 

 the wiry wild type. It is then that uncertainty 

 begins, that like no longer produces like as a matter 

 of course, but only to a certain degree, under the 

 hand of a master, and under the circumstances I 

 have described above. For instance, in breeding 

 gamefowl, the same hatch will yield even from a 

 duck-wing pair a mixed assembly of duck-wing, 

 black-breasted red, white piles, &c. Of these the 

 breeder sorts the best and sends them to different 

 homesteads, so as to secure at each one a due uni- 

 formity of tint. 



In other stock, by analogy, great variety of ex- 

 perience must be looked for. 



It will often happen that a fine midland or north 

 countiy mare, with grand points and action of her 

 own, will throw colts that are not worth the rearing, 

 some ungainly element of her ancestry having doubt- 

 less floated to the surface : while on the same estate 

 a small mountain-bred mare will prove a very nugget 



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