Breeding 243 



intensified in field dogs ; but any dog can be, if 

 its game-hunting instinct has not been too much 

 bred away, easily taught to recognize hidden 

 game, point, back, and retrieve. In field dogs, 

 since these ineradicable nerve habits of all ca- 

 nines have been intensified by long years of 

 selection, the production of a special aptitude in 

 breeding and the development of it in training 

 may be forecast with assurance. The same rule 

 holds in general physical qualities. Beyond that 

 fact not much is predicable. The breeder may 

 succeed in getting good dogs, but one would wait 

 long to find a dog which at maturity exactly real- 

 ized in looks or character the image which was 

 before the breeder's mind when he made the mat- 

 ing. A phenomenon never reproduces itself; it 

 may produce something as good or better, but 

 never a fac-simile. So you can't tell about the 

 sons of great dogs any more than about the sons 

 of great men. 



The making of cut-and-dried systems and rules 

 has an almost morbid attraction for both authors 

 and audiences. Hundreds of horse breeders be- 

 lieve in the " figure " system — a rank absurdity 

 in its main propositions and yet having a certain 

 valuable attachment of facts and suggestions. 

 Some dog breeders have a rule of breeding twice in 

 and once out, and some alter the proportions to twice 

 out and once in. One of the commonest calcula- 



