BREEDING. 201 



Dishley breed, which proves the "persevering 

 energies of a single individual against every possible 

 discouragement" (Rev. G. Wood), "went for meat 

 first, then wool, by a course of judicious selection 

 until eventually the two excellences of flesh and 

 wool were combined in the same animal." 



The tinting of a breed gives great trouble. The 

 orthodox hue of the Southdown's countenance is a 

 matter of intense pains, as it has been too in the 

 merino. Every reader will recall the emphasis 

 with which Virgil warns against the use of a ram 

 having even a black spot under his tongue. 



Curious is it in breeding that reasoning man has 

 about inverted the natural shape of the animals he 

 fattens. That ridge-and-tile back, the serious defect 

 of which Jonas Webb first learnt to appreciate by 

 riding his father's rams about as a boy, and which 

 the great engineer of the Manchester and Liverpool 

 line concluded against mathematically — a formation 

 intended apparently as a provision of nature for the 

 mountain breeds that never know a shed, to enable 

 them to throw off the rain — man has learnt to level, 

 as the miller does his pool. 



One injunction of breeders I must confess I could 

 never understand ; that is, that you are to cross an 

 animal defective in one point, with another especially 

 favoured in that respect ; as if you were to hit a mean 

 thereby. 



Why breed from a defective animal at all ? If a 

 favourite, that is of course a sufficient reason, and in 

 that case you might be content to take what you get. 

 But that in this sort of pairing the excellence of the 



