38 THE PERCHERON HORSE. 



Caen, where he commenced a few years ago and where 

 the stock can be easily examined. 



A bull of the Cotentin race, the most perfect and best 

 bred that could be found, put to heifers of the same breed, 

 chosen among the finest types, was the starting point 

 officially recorded. Selection, operating upon this prog- 

 eny, as it had operated in the beginning, was continued 

 without intermission, and, by these means it has produced 

 a herd all the members of which are alike and constant- 

 ly transmitting identical qualities. 



CHAPTER HI. 



CONSANGUINITY. 



Conjugal consanguinity has neither partisans nor friends. 

 The physiologist, physician, priest, and legislator, have al- 

 ways launched against it the same anathema. All, in 

 making war against it, knew that it was the surest method 

 of establishing a fixed and permanent race ; but, all, pre- 

 occupied in seeking a means of universal fusion, thought 

 they had found in the prohibition of this a leveler destined 

 to equalize everything. 



It was feared that certain families would become too 

 individualized, too marked in their tendencies ; and all, 

 without acknowledging it, endeavored to close a way 

 which might lead to the engrossment of fortunes. 



Close interbreeding, in the horse, has not the same politi- 

 cal inconveniences ; this is clearly apparent ; but with us, 

 the desire to legislate upon and regulate everything, re- 

 ducing nil to a common level, has prevailed. Equine con- 

 sanguinity has not, any more than the other, found favor. 



One fact, however, strikes any one at the outset who has 



