SOME ENGLISH BREED-BUILDERS 83 



effects of in-breeding, out-crossing, environment, and 

 all those other matters commonly supposed to enter 

 largely into breeding problems. Now and then, how- 

 ever, something quite outside our own little horizon 

 makes its appearance to the utter confounding of 

 some of our pet propositions. Listen to one of the 

 strangest stories in bovine history. 



There is nothing more firmly established in Here- 

 ford annals than the fact that the bull Sir David 

 (349) was not only the greatest of his day and gen- 

 eration as a show bull, but as a sire as well. During 

 his own long and sensational career in the flesh, he 

 was the terror of all adversaries of all breeds at 

 shows great and small, national and local; and af- 

 ter his death he lived again in his sons and their 

 sons, such as Sir Benjamin, Sir Thomas, Sir Roger 

 and Lord Wilton, factors every one in bringing the 

 breed to its highest perfection'. But "tell it not in 

 Gath; publish it not in the streets of Askelon;" this 

 bull of Hereford bulls, one of the undoubted prodi- 

 gies of the bovine ages, had no breeder at all. Not 

 only that but he was the result of a match such as 

 is now and ever has been set down as impossible. He 

 came literally by Chance. A bull of that name (him- 

 self of uncertain paternity) accidentally broke from 

 his box and served an own daughter called Duchess 

 2d. This misfortune, as it was doubtless regarded at 

 the time by the owner, occurred upon the farm of 

 David Williams of Newton, Breconshire, in Wales, 

 in 1844. From this union a bull calf eventuated in 



