150 THE COMPLETE SHOT 



in hand he beat all the best pointers and setters in the country 

 at the Gun-dog League's Field Trials in July last, upon the 

 grouse moors of Lord Home. 



The author was very pleased with the great " class " shown 

 by Rob Roy, not because the English dogs were beaten, but 

 mostly because he has for some years been pointing out that 

 America was assuredly ahead of us, because of our attempt to 

 breed docility instead of to break it. The writer, in fact, got 

 almost ashamed of comparing the dogs of the present to their 

 disadvantage with the dogs of the past, and felt quite sure it 

 would have been much more popular to have ignored old 

 memories and been satisfied with the best of English field 

 trial work. He was quite aware that this laudation of the days 

 and dogs that are gone was held to be more or less what it so 

 often is. But now that Captain Lonsdale's fine setter has 

 demonstrated that a single selection of the author's in America, 

 with every chance against him, has been able to establish the 

 accuracy of his memory, he believes that crossing will result 

 in bringing back all the old "class" vitality and energy, 

 especially if we were, like the Americans, to establish real 

 stamina trials, and, like them, evolve truer formation. Evolu- 

 tion of form is still in progress, just as it was when our 

 ancestors first differentiated the setter from the spaniel by 

 selection of the best workers. 



The author is not concerned to make his experiences fit in 

 with recent Mendelian or anti-Mendelian science. You can't 

 make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, nor will the crossings 

 of plants, guinea-pigs, and mice conform to experiences with 

 higher animals. If they would, Darwin's pigeons would have 

 taught the stud master. They did not. That there is this 

 difference one statement of two first generation facts is enough 

 to prove. It is that if pure-bred white fowls are crossed with 

 another race, equally pure-bred, and black, the offspring will all 

 be black chicks and white chicks, with no mixtures. On the 

 other hand, " in spite of all temptations to belong to other 

 nations," no American pure negro has ever been able to call 

 her offspring a white child. 



