THE BREEDER'S CORNER-STONE. 25 



lect animals of like character and breed, then, 

 with a view to preserve the type. Thus the 

 Arabs, when scarcely more than half- wild sav- 

 ages, kept records of their horses' pedigrees and 

 valued them scarcely less than such pedigrees,^ 

 are valued today. In the days of the Koma'n 

 Empire so fully had this law come into general 

 recognition that for the sport of the luxury- 

 degraded people who had once by sturdy man- 

 hood achieved the mastery of the world all 

 kinds of monstrous forms were cultivated and 

 bred, showing that the world had already 

 learned how broad the law was; that not only 

 were normal characteristics reproduced but 

 that abnormal features were also propagated; 

 and that the rule was not merely general but 

 that it extended to the reproduction in the 

 offspring of many of the most trivial personal 

 peculiarities. 



A few particular examples may perhaps best 

 make clear the great breadth and at the same 

 time the minute influence upon detail which 

 the power embodied in this law has. I shall 

 begin with the more general and proceed to the 

 more special cases. 



Perhaps the most general type 'of Cases are 

 those of race peculiarities. The large-framed 

 blonde type of the Teutonic peoples, the smaller 

 dark-hued type of the Italian and other South- 

 ern races, the yellow of the Mongolian, the 



