SELECTION 



595 



the honor of breeders, who, as a class, are the soul of honor, and 

 would no more falsify a pedigree than they would rob a bank. 



Such methods must be met, and breeders' fads generally 

 should receive their everlasting quietus within the confines of 

 our breeders' associations. If this may be, then the individual 

 will be reasonably safe ; if not, then he must take his chances 

 with the rest, but against this insidious enemy of all good breed- 

 ing his voice and his pen should be instant and active, this in 

 the interest not only of his own business but of the breed he loves. 



Fashionable pedigrees. All agree, and the law of ancestral 

 heredity proves, that the ancestry back of the individual is 

 extremely potent ; yet this potency largely resides in the near-by 

 members, and to see a breeder poring over a pedigree running 

 ten or twelve generations back to an " approved " individual on 

 the female side, and then gravely nodding approbation of a 

 " good foundation," this is indeed both humorous and pathetic. 



According to the law of ancestral heredity as stated by Galton 

 and fully noted in a previous chapter, each generation and each 

 individtial oi the various generations has an influence represented 

 by the following fractions, waiving all questions of prepotency : 



RELATIVE INTENSITY OF BLOOD LINES AND APPROXIMATELY RELATIVE 



INFLUENCE OF DIFFERENT GENERATIONS AND INDIVIDUALS 



FOR TEN GENERATIONS BACKWARD 



1 This will be 100 if carried to infinity. 



