184 THE HORSE 



sire : and they are so clear as to leave the question settled without a 

 doubt. 1 



16. WHEN SOME OF THE ELEMENTS of which an individual sire is com- 

 posed are in accordance with others making up those of the dam, they 

 coalesce in such a kindred way as to make what is called a " hit." On the 

 other hand, when they are too incongruous, an animal is the result wholly 

 unfitted for the task he is intended to perform. 



THESE PRINCIPLES, together with the observations following upon them, 

 have been quoted verbatim, at great length, by the late Mr. Herbert, in 

 his elaborate quarto work on "The Horse of America," with the very 

 flattering testimony that he had done so " not for the purpose of avoiding 

 trouble, or sparing time, but because he conceives the principles laid down 

 to be correct throughout, the reasoning logical and cogent, the examples 

 well taken, and the deductions such as can scarcely be denied." In support 

 of this opinion, he adduces several instances in which a " hit " has occurred 

 in America by carrying out the last axiom in the preceding list. Thus he 

 says, at page 260 of his second volume, "I think myself that it is made 

 clear by recent events, and that such is shown to be the case by the tables 

 of racing stock given at the close of the first volume, 2 that, previous to the 

 last quarter of a century, the American turfman was probably breeding in 

 too much of the old Virginian and South Carolina ante-revolutionary stock, 

 and that the American race-horse has been improved by the recent cross 

 of modern English blood. It is also worthy of remark, that every one of 

 the four most successful of modern English stallions in this country which 

 have most decidedly hit with our old stock Leviathan, Sarpedon, Priam, 

 and Glencoe all trace back to several crosses of Herod blood ; Glencoe 

 and Priam not less than three or four several times each to crosses of 

 Partner blood, and directly several times over to the Godolphin Barb, or 

 Arabian, which are the very strains from which our Virginian stock 

 derives its peculiar excellence. It is farther worthy of remark, that two 

 stallions have decidedly hit with the imported English mare Reel, as 

 proved by her progeny, Lecompte and Prioress, respectively to Boston and 

 Sovereign. Now Reel, through Glencoe, Catton, Gohanna, and Smolensko, 

 has herself no less than seven distinct strains of Herod blood. Boston, as 

 every one knows, traces directly through Timoleon, Sir Archy, Diomed, 

 Florizel, to Herod, Sovereign, also, through Emilius, his sire, has Herod 

 on both lines as his paternal and maternal g.g.g. sire ; and Tartar, the sire 

 of Herod, a third time, in one remove yet farther back. Now this would 

 go to justify Stonehenge's opinion that the recurrence to the same original 

 old strains of blood, when such strains have been sufficiently intermixed 

 and rendered new by other more recent crosses, is not injurious, but oi 

 great advantage ; and that, on the whole, it is better, cceteris paribus, to 

 do such than to try experiments with extreme out-crosses." 



1 In 1897 a pony mare, the property of Lord Morton, gave birth to a foal with well -marked 

 zebra stripes through the influence of a previous sire. The case excited very wide interest 

 in natural history circles as proof of telegony, which is now considered to be finally settled. 

 EDITOR. 



2 These tables I have extensively drawn upon at pages 48-52 et seq., correcting them where 

 they required it. 



