THE CLAYS AND BASHAWS. 337 



Jane and the produce was his best son, Sam Purdy. This mare 

 Whiskey Jane was quite a trotter and,she was undoubtedly pacing 

 bred, but I will not here enter into the details of her origin. 



We have here before us a condensed view of the trotting in- 

 heritance of the Clay and the Patchen families from Andrew 

 Jackson to Sam Purdy, and its most remarkable feature is its 

 poverty in recognized trotting blood. On the maternal side, the 

 pacing habit of action seems to prevail in almost every succeed- 

 ing generation. The second thought is that the tribe has not 

 held its vantage ground of the first and the longest line of de- 

 veloped trotting speed. The third is that it has failed to trans- 

 mit speed with uniformity, but rather sporadically. This may 

 be accounted for by the general character and uncertainty of the 

 maternal side, and suggests the question whether animals so bred 

 can be relied upon to transmit with uniformity an inherit- 

 ance received sporadically. From its place in the first rank as to 

 time and popularity, this family has not been able to hold its 

 own and it has declined to a place among the minor families of 

 -trotters and bids fair to be absorbed by tribes of stronger trotting 

 inheritance. 



