BREEDING. 203 



to the highest pitch of superiority, only to run down 

 again under unskilful management, as your pet son's 

 model railway when the 'prentice hand interferes and 

 lifts it from the groove on which the master-spirit 

 started it, and so probably, under favouring circum- 

 stances, all the varieties of each domesticated breed 

 would waste back to the original wild type. It has 

 been remarked that in cross breeding the alteration 

 of mental traits is more enduring than that of the 

 bodily form. A well-known instance is that of a 

 kennel of foxhounds, Mr. Meynell's, if I remember 

 aright, having been crossed with a bull-dog, in order 

 to restore a want of spirit that they had begun to 

 exhibit. The result was, that by that one dash of 

 new blood new courage was gained and retained, all 

 outward trace of configuration disappearing entirely 

 in a generation or two. 



" The effect of domestication," remarks Yarrell, " in 

 producing variation in colour has lately been exhibited 

 in a very striking and interesting manner in the me- 

 nagerie of the Zoological Society. An Australian 

 bitch, or dingo, had a litter of puppies, the father of 

 which was also of that breed ; both of them had been 

 taken in the wild state, both were of the uniform 

 reddish-brown colour which belongs to the race, and 

 the mother had never bred before ; but the young, 

 bred in confinement, and in a half-domesticated state, 

 were all of them more or less spotted." 



If the full circumstances under which this change 

 occurred could be investigated, it would probably be 

 found that, as in the case mentioned above, there 

 had been some mental influence exerted on the 



