180 DOMESTICATED ANIMALS AND PLANTS 



For all these reasons the establishment of a record in which 

 should be recorded the pedigree of all animals claiming purity 

 of blood became an early necessity. It was done first with the 

 Thoroughbred at the time of the early English races, 1 and 

 followed rapidly afterward with cattle, swine, and even dogs. 



In the pedigree register the animal's name is recorded, but 

 he is known and officially designated by his serial number, 

 assigned by the secretary of the association. The pedigree re- 

 cords also the date of birth, the name and number of the sire 

 and generally of the dam, together with the name of the owner 

 and sometimes some distinguishing mark that may be used for 

 identification. In general, the pedigree is a guarantee not only 

 of purity of blood but also, in a general way, of the family lines 

 to which the individual belongs. Identifying any particular 

 individual with the pedigree is a matter that rests solely with 

 the breeder, and for this reason the value of the pedigree of any 

 animal is largely dependent upon the reliability of the owner, 

 because he may falsify the report if he desires to do so. 



1 With the decline of chivalry after the crusades came the just, or tilt, in 

 which first real and afterward nominal knights played at war. Later this de- 

 veloped into the fox or hare hunt, and later still into the horse race. From the 

 first the horses figured largely, especially such as were taken from the Arabs 

 at the" time of the crusades. As the tournament descended to the hunt the 

 relative importance of the horse increased, and as this in turn merged into the 

 race, the horse was of far more consequence than the rider. So a boy was 

 substituted for the owner, and thus the knight of the tournament became the 

 jockey of the horse race. When the hunt first became the race, the fox or the 

 hare was let loose in a circular course, well fenced, and then run down with 

 riders and dogs ; but later the fox and the fence were omitted on the assump- 

 tion that the horse that could first get around the track would best be able to 

 run down the fox, were the game a real hunt. 



All this time the sport was confined to the gentry, whose horses were more 

 or less directly descended from Arabian or other stock brought to England 

 during or immediately after the crusades, which saw the practical end of the 

 age of chivalry. As the sport grew, some way had to be devised to keep out 

 the mob, and the rules early forbade the entry of any horse whose breeding 

 could not be traced along certain approved lines. This led naturally to written 

 and afterward to printed records of pedigrees, a custom that began naturally 

 in horse racing and which has been extended to all breeding as being the most 

 ready means of identifying blood lines and of establishing authentic records of 

 breeding. 



