24 UNCONSCIOUS SELECTION. [CHAP. I. 



breed, superior to anything of the kind in the country. But, for 

 our purpose, a form of Selection, which may be called Unconscious, 

 and which results from every one trying to possess and breed from 

 the best individual animals, is more important. Thus, a man who 

 intends keeping pointers naturally tries to get as good dogs as he 

 can, and afterwards breeds from his own best dogs, but he has no 

 wish or expectation of permanently altering the breed. Never- 

 theless we may infer that this process, continued during centuries, 

 would improve and modify any breed, in the same way as Bake well, 

 Collins, etc., by this very same process, only carried on more 

 methodically, did greatly modify, even during their lifetimes, the 

 forms and qualities of their cattle. Slow and insensible changes of 

 this kind can never be recognised unless actual measurements or 

 careful drawings of the breeds in question have been made long 

 ago, which may serve for comparison. In some cases, however, 

 unchanged, or but little changed individuals of the same breed 

 exist in less civilised districts, where the breed has been less im- 

 proved. There is reason to believe that King Charles's spaniel has 

 been unconsciously modified to a large extent since the time of 

 that monarch. Some highly competent authorities are convinced 

 that the setter is directly derived from the spaniel, and has pro- 

 bably been slowly altered from it. It is known that the English 

 pointer has been greatly changed within the last century, and in 

 this case the change has, it is believed, been chiefly effected by 

 crosses with the foxhound : but what concerns us is, that the 

 change has been effected unconsciously and gradually, and yet so 

 effectually, that, though the old Spanish pointer certainly came 

 from Spain, Mr. Borrow has not seen, as I am informed by him, 

 any native dog in Spain like our pointer. 



By a simple process of selection, and by careful training, English 

 racehorses have come to surpass in fleetness and size the parent 

 Arabs, so that the latter, by the regulations for the Goodwood 

 Races, are favoured in the weights Avhich they carry. Lord 

 Spencer and others have shown how the cattle of England have 

 increased in weight and in early maturity, compared with the 

 stock formerly kept in this country. By comparing the accounts 

 given in various old treatises of the former and present state of 

 carrier and tumbler pigeons in Britain, India, and Persia, we can 

 trace the stages through which they have insensibly passed, and 

 come to differ so greatly from the rock-pigeon. 



Youatt gives an excellent illustration of the effects of a course of 

 selection, which may be considered as unconscious, in so far that 

 the breeders could never have expected, or even wished, to produce 

 the result which ensued namely, the production of two distinct 

 strains. The two flocks of Leicester sheep kept by Mr. Buckley 

 and Mr. Burgess, as Mr. Youatt remarks " have been purely bred 



