lii GENERAL INTRODUCTION. 



adds, " If the experiment be carried as far as the case 

 will allow, the feeble and frequently monstrous offspring- 

 will be incapable of being reared up, and the miserable 

 race will utterly perish." From what takes place with 

 guinea-pigs I think these statements may be at once 

 accepted as trustworthy ; nevertheless it is desirable 

 that the experiment with hogs be repeated, and a com- 

 plete record of the results published. 



I am not aware if any corresponding experiments have 

 been made with horses, unless, indeed, the breeding of 

 race-horses may be looked upon us a colossal and costly 

 experiment of this kind. It seems to be generally 

 admitted that English race-horses are inbred. Sir Walter 

 Gilbey speaks of their inherent galloping action and 

 speed as having been implanted " by inbreeding during 

 nearly two hundred years." ^ It may, however, be again 

 pointed out that there is plenty of inbreeding in nature, 

 and that the evils we associate with inbreeding may often 

 be counteracted by rigid and persistent selection, by pre- 

 venting the weaklings from leaving descendants. If in 

 staying power and constitution the modern thoroughbreds 

 are defective, it is not so much that they have descended 

 from a few imported sires, that they '^ trace their descent 

 to the Byerly Turk imported in 1689, to the Darley 

 Arabian imported in 1710, and the Godolphin Arabian 

 imported twenty years later,"t '^s that the physically 

 " unfit-" as well as the " fit" have often been allowed to 

 perpetuate themselves, — " blood " and speed only having, 

 as a rule, counted in the selection alike of sires and 

 dams. The descendants of the horses that escaped from 

 the Spaniards after the discovery of America were rarely 

 found wanting in hardiness and general fitness, even 

 when small and unshapely ; and in the same way the 

 descendants of modern thoroughbred sires now reared 

 under trying conditions in Montana are fit enough, though 

 often not larger than polo ponies. The cold and limited 

 supply of suitable food in winter, or the drought and 



* ' On Breeding Carriage Horses,' 1S9S, p. 10. 



t Loc. cit., j). 16. 



