250 PRINCIPLES OF STOCK-BREEDING. 



Mr. Roberts reports the case of a horse with two 

 curbs. The sire was free from defects ; but a sister 

 in the same stable had two curbs ; their dam had two 

 curbs, and a foal of hers by another horse had also 

 two curbs, showing conclusively that the defect was 

 transmitted by the dam. 1 



The statements of Mr. Walker have been so often 

 quoted, and his theory so generally accepted, that we 

 must be permitted to quote some of his cases and his 

 inferences from them : " Of the power of the horse 

 to communicate, in a cross, his skeleton, and therefore 

 his locomotive system generally, or, in other words, 

 his general shape and character, Mr. Knight gives an 

 interesting example." a 



Then follows Mr. Knight's case : " I have obtained 

 offspring," he says, "from Norwegian pony mares 

 and the London dray-horse, of which the legs are pre- 

 ternativrally shorty and the shoulders and body preter- 

 naturally deep, and the animal of course preternatural- 

 ly strong. . . . The offspring of my Norwegian mares, 

 as always happens in similar cases, had legs as short as 

 their mothers at birth ; but the male parent, the dray- 

 horse, caused their legs to grow greatly stronger, and 

 their joints and bodies generally much larger, although 

 the legs remained short." 



" Thus in equine crosses," says Mr. "Walker, in the 

 paragraph immediately following the quotation from 

 Mr. Knight, " the male gives the locomotive system, 

 the female the vital one." 



A theory founded on such inferences, from such 



1 "The Horse," by Youatt, p. 35. 



2 Walker on " Intermarriage," p. 187. 



