SILVER WYANDOTTES LAWS OF BREEDING. 31 



daughters. In the meantime he exhibits and advertises, and the 

 world finds out that he has produced the renowned Excelsior strain. 

 He sells to A, B and C in different sections, men who want the best, 

 and they pay him high prices. They also study the "art of breed- 

 ing," and they learn that the grand secret is in-breeding ; so they 

 each commence the same process with their newly acquired stock. 

 Each of them sells eggs for hatching, though they have a queer 

 suspicion that the breeders do not lay well, and somehow there is a 

 reduction in number and quality of chickens hatched, that does not 

 correspond with prices paid. The few chickens hatched do not 

 equal their great-great-great grandfather, on the father's side. 

 There is something of a resemblance, but it is painful. An unusual 

 vigor and prepotency is not easily blotted out. It is a great pity 

 when all excellence is " bred out," and nothing is left but a name. 



" NATURAL SELECTION." The theory of natural selection and 

 of " the survival of the fittest," is as follows: Birds, as other animals, 

 in a state of nature select their mates partly on account of their 

 superior strength, etc., and partly on account of certain beauties, 

 pleasing to the eye. In addition to this, the weaklings of each 

 brood die, and those the plumage of which is least adapted for con- 

 cealment from predatory animals, etc., fall a prey to their natural 

 enemies. In both these ways the strength of the stock is kept up, 

 and a particular type of plumage (that most pleasing to the eye of 

 the other sex, or that most suited for concealment from enemies), is 

 perpetuated. 



" ARTIFICIAL SELECTION " Is entirely different and consists, 

 in the first instance, in the arbitrary settling by man of certain 

 features which he desires to perpetuate, and the perpetuation by 

 artificial means of these features. 



REMARKS. 



The breeder is now in possession of the leading facts in the 

 laws of breeding, and ought to profit by the information. There is 

 yet much to be learned, and which still remains a stubborn mystery. 

 It puzzles all to account for the variations which unexpectedly 

 appear in flocks of fowls, as well as in animals. In a large family 

 we seldom find all the children resembling either the father or the 

 mother, and, in many instances, the resemblance to a grandparent 

 or some more remote ancestor, prevails to so great an extent that the 

 obvious peculiarities of the immediate parents are obscured. 



It has been remarked that no two animals are precisely alike in 



