96 HUNTING THE FOX 



he is first-rate in his work, if his food does not do 

 him any good even when he has been coaxed to 

 eat it. His descendants will be weak to resist 

 disease, difficult to rear, and will cause much loss 

 of time and much disappointment. 



Breeders' opinions differ as to the degree of 

 closeness that should be observed in comparing 

 the pedigrees of a sire and a dam whom it is pro- 

 posed to mate. It is not necessary to have the 

 whole Mendelian theory at the fingers' ends, but it 

 is a good rule of thumb not to allow the same name 

 to occur more than once until you get above a line 

 drawn across the top of the second generation. 

 That is to say, that every Hound should at least 

 have different great-grandsires and great-grand- 

 dams on both sides of the house. When you get 

 farther back than the second generation the 

 same names may occur, indeed must occur, dotted 

 about all over the pedigree chart. This is necessary 

 in order to preserve the type. It is a mistake to 

 go too far away in blood. To take an extreme 

 case, a fantastic alliance between an English 

 Foxhound and a Welsh Foxhound who have no 

 ancestors in common, is calculated to produce a 

 family of freaks of no recognized type, or perhaps 

 the whole litter will favour the English or the 

 Welsh, according as the one or the other is dominant 

 or recessive. 



Another good thing to remember in breeding. 



