BREEDING. 187 



that way ; while if either sire or dam belong to a 

 breed below that which you wish to produce, you 

 cannot reckon with certainty on obtaining an animal 

 with the quality and breeding required for your 

 purpose. 



To give an instance. If both sire and dam are 

 thoroughbred, the foal will be thoroughbred, and all 

 the foals will always be thoroughbred. If sire and 

 dam are both of a coaching breed, all the stock will 

 be coach-horses, and in either case you can reckon 

 with certainty on what description of animal you 

 will obtain. But if the sire is a thoroughbred and 

 the dam a coaching mare, one foal may look nearly 

 thoroughbred and be a good hunter, and another 

 may look like a coach-horse and not be fit for any- 

 thing else, and it is this variety in the produce 

 which makes it such an "uncertainty how you will 

 succeed in breeding hunters in this manner. 



Now if hunters were a distinct breed, tracing: 

 back for some generations, you would be able to 

 breed a hunter with as much certainty as you can 

 now breed a cart-horse. You might breed a good 

 hunter or a bad one, just as you now may breed a 

 good cart-horse or a bad one, but it would be classed 

 as a hunter and not as anything else. I have been 

 told that any attempt to do this would be a failure, 

 and would produce a mongrel breed, and that it 

 would be impossible to keep up the good qualities of 

 the breed without a constant infusion of pure blood. 



