28 THE RACE-HORSE. 



site cross, pure blood, with evident improvement 

 upon the original stock, was procured on the eighth 

 descent. The late Lord Orford, very celebrated 

 for his greyhounds, finding them degenerating in 

 courage, crossed his best bitches with a bull-dog. 

 The result was, after several re -crossings with pure 

 blood, that breed of greyhounds for w^hich he was 

 so eminently distinguished. The immediate descen- 

 dants, however, of the Eastern horses, have, almost 

 without an exception, proved so deficient of late 

 years, that our breeders will no more have recourse 

 to them, than the farmer would to the natural oat, 

 which is little better than a weed, to produce a 

 sample that should rival that of his neighbours, in 

 the market."' 



Much speculation has also been indulged in, as 

 to the efiiect of close affinity, in breeding the race- 

 horse, or what is called breeding in-and-in ; a sys- 

 tem which has eminently succeeded in breeding 

 cattle, and also with Lord Egremont's racing stud. 

 Beginning with Flying Childers, several of our 

 very best racers have been very closely bred ; and 

 it certainly appears reasonable that, as like is said 

 to produce like, if we have high form and superior 

 organisation in an own brother and sister, that high 

 form and superior organisation would be very likely 

 to be continued to their incestuous produce. In a 

 work called " Observations on Breeding for the 

 Turf,'' published a few years back, by Nicholas 

 Hankey Smith, who resided a long time among the 

 Arabs, the author gives his opinion, that colts bred 

 in-and-in show more blood in their heads, are of 



