6 5 2 



A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH TURF. 



prefer to see in it the result of much more modern blood, and much less complicated 

 methods of selecting sires and dams than Mr. Allison apparently prescribes. Nor 

 do I understand how he can reconcile the total disappearance of his sixth family from 

 the first twenty in such a table as that just printed, while the families he numbers 21, 

 22, and 23 do make their appearance in this same first twenty. It is true that the 

 families who have won a hundred or more races, if placed in order of merit would 

 read as No. 2, No. 4, No. i, No. 3, No. 8, No. 5, and No. 12 ; but, in spite of this, 

 if we take the value of the prizes won, how are we to explain the facts that the family 

 he placed sixteenth can be actually fifth on the table quoted owing to its possession 

 of Sceptre, the best mare of modern times ; and that the family he placed fourteenth 



can in the same table 

 have reached the sixth 

 place owing to possess- 

 ing such two-year-old 

 fliers as Pretty Polly 

 and St.Amant ? If we 

 consider the number 

 ~~/ 1 of mares by which each 



family is represented 

 in the current number 

 of the General Stud 

 Book, the problem 

 becomes even more 

 difficult ; for though it 

 is true that some mares 



have more foals than others, it is clear that his No. 2 family, with nearly 200 more 

 mares to represent it than No. i, will by that very fact of numerical superiority 

 enjoy a greater chance than the No. i family ; and indeed it is two places higher 

 than his No. i family in the table which we are now considering. I think that the 

 views taken of this theory, called the " Figure System," are of such importance in our 

 future systems of breeding, that I have added these more modern considerations 

 of its value to those arguments based on earlier results which were given in 

 Vol. I. p. 154, and Vol. II. p. 435. The conclusion in my own mind is an 

 unbounded admiration for Mr. Allison's skilful and interesting treatment of the facts 

 he had before him, but an unshaken belief that the statistics he produced are 



"Merman" (1892, Australia). 



