20 TPIE BREEDING PEOBLEM. 



The stock and breeding journals of this country abound Avith in- 

 stances of marked and jieculiar qualities and traits that have been 

 acquired by certain animals, and which are transmitted to their 

 offspring with great uniformity, but in many cases differing in tiie 

 degree of their apparent transmission. It is also very noticeable that 

 in some instances the young progeny seem to have the peculiarities 

 that mark or disthiguish the family to a degree that surpasses 

 even the parents. In some, the habit or peculiarity appears either 

 wanting or deficient in early life, but at a later period develops in full 

 force and intensity, and in some cases the early precocity appears to 

 grow dim or feeble with age. 



Every one familiar with the different breeds of dogs is aware of the 

 changes that have been wrought in the habits and characteristics of 

 the several families of the canine species — how then- peculiar traits 

 develop and intensify by use and employment, and how rapidly they 

 retrograde by indolence and a change in employment. A pair of 

 young Collies or shepherd dogs introduced on a farm where there are 

 no others of the same breed and no cattle or sheep to herd, instinctively 

 herd together the ducks and geese, chickens and turkeys on the farm, 

 even to the annoyance of the feathered bipeds. But they must have 

 occupation, for such are their instincts, and if they can not find flocks 

 of sheep they will huddle together the geese of the barn yard and 

 stand guard about them. 



So of the ycung setter and pointer. My first lessons in chicken 

 shooting on the prairie were taken over a young dog that had neither 

 teacher nor trainer, and he seemed to require none. His hereditary 

 instincts caused him to know which were the right birds and in a little 

 time he would notice no other — a rabbit did not attract his attention any 

 more than a pig or a cat ; but, strange to say, when he was an older 

 dog, and from want of emjiloyment in his favorite line — that of point- 

 ing birds — he had learned to chase rabbits in his idle hours, he seemed 

 to lose much of the unerring sagacity which led him when very 

 young to seek only the feathered game. He was bred from parents 

 that had been carefully bred for the latter game only. Fox hounds 

 have been so bred that they would run and cry on the track of a fox 

 when very young and give no heed to a rabbit that crossed their 

 path in full sight. From their breeding they were true to the game 

 and spurt for which their parents of the kennel had been kept ; yet 

 every one perhaps knows that the common fox hound will chase 

 labbits as readily and as persistently as anything else if indulged in 



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