38 CATTLE-BREEDING. 



made of the coincident lines. So every animal 

 may be viewed as the sum of a large number of 

 images of his ancestors. Every \ine in all their 

 pictures is there; some so faint as to be of no 

 significance, others merely suggesting the an- 

 cestor here and there. Others, where a number 

 of tendencies unite on a single line, stand out 

 and really give the animal its character. Where 

 the lines of dam and sire lie one above the other 

 the character of the animal may generally be 

 traced. Where one is prepotent let us say that 

 the first picture is printed very faintly, the last 

 very heavily so as to almost obliterate the first 

 faint lines. Again, let us say that one ancestor 

 occurs a number of times in the pedigree of 

 both sire and dam that is, that his picture is 

 taken in our composite photograph not once 

 but repeatedly, so that its lines really are the 

 chief factors in it. Will it be any surprise, 

 then, to learn that the final composite is singu- 

 larly like this ancestor? This is what is known 

 in cattle-breeding as atavism, or reverting to an 

 ancestor more distant than sire and dam. 



But analogies must not be pressed too far. 

 And we find that a single cross sometimes 

 leaves so deep an impression in the blood that 

 evidences will crop out again and again in 

 remote descendants. But the special case of 

 atavism demands more special treatment than 

 can be given it in a remote allusion. 





