GENERAL INTRODUCTION. Ivii 



member that the offspring would tend to take most after 

 the prepotent parent ; in many cases the cross-bred stock 

 would, from the first, resemble English thoroughbreds in 

 appearance, though differing from them considerably in 

 constitution. In selecting American or Australian sires 

 or dams, regard should be had to their form and record, 

 and, other things being equal, horses should be selected 

 that are free from blood recently introduced from the 

 mother country, i. e. the purest available descendants of 

 the first good race-horses imported (into the States or 

 Australia) should be preferred. 



Perhaps the best way to maintain the staying power 

 and constitution as well as the speed of the English race- 

 horse would be to have recoui'se now and again to Australia 

 or New Zealand for sires and dams equal, if possible, in 

 fleetness and size to our own thoroughbreds, but differing- 

 from them in having a recent dash of Arab blood in their 

 veins. 



Having discussed at some length prepotency and in- 

 breeding, various problems may now be considered with 

 which these subjects are more or less intimately in- 

 volved. 



Breeders, to their credit be it said, like biologists, are 

 more or less guided by certain working hypotheses. It 

 is not their blame if some of the tenets making up their 

 creed are found wanting when put to the experimental 

 test, or that some of the explanations of out-of-the-way 

 phenomena are far-fetched or tinged with medioevalism. 

 The creed of the biologist is ever changing, and, except 

 in the case of mere hodmen, speculation and theory 

 are ever in advance of the facts. But with the breeder, 

 perhaps more than the biologist, superstitions are likely 

 to flourish, for it is beyond the province of the average 

 breeder to test his beliefs by systematic experiments. 

 There is not yet a Newmarket confession to which breeders 

 of thoroughbreds are expected to subscribe, yet there are 

 many beliefs or dogmas which are firmly adhered to by 

 the Aberdeen Angus, Galloway, and shorthorn men, as 



