ARAB AND BARB HORSES 27 



They know that they have animals of pure blood 

 and that the progeny of them will still be pure no 

 matter how closely the parents may be related. 

 There is selection, of course, as inferior males are 

 not permitted to be sires. Instead of that they are 

 sometimes destroyed, or sent to Syria and even to 

 Mesopotamia to serve the mares of those re- 

 gions where the mares are Arabs but not pure 

 Nejdees. Here is one queer fact about the Arab 

 and Barb blood, and proof also of its wonderful 

 prepotency. So long as it is mingled with other 

 blood not too heterogeneous, the most close in- 

 breeding appears not only to do no harm, but ac- 

 tually to do good. This is particularly so with the 

 English Thoroughbred, the American Morgan, 

 and the Kentucky Denmark. 



All we are told about the Darley Arabian is 

 this. Mr. Darley of Yorkshire, had a brother who 

 was a merchant in Aleppo. This brother brought 

 home a black bay * stallion some 14 hands in 

 stature, about 1700. He became in 1707 the sire 

 of Flying Childers, the greatest race-horse in 

 England and the progenitor of most of those on 



* A very unusual color for a Nejdee. 



