252 The Sporting Dog 



uals of the best descent, and then be prepared 

 for anything. 



Breeding is all a matter of probabilities. The 

 skilful breeder minimizes the danger of defects. 

 When he gets a fine specimen all the world hears 

 him "holler." When he gets a dozen plugs he 

 remembers that silence is golden ; he shuns fame. 

 Even about his fine ones his hindsight is better 

 than was his foresight as to how he did the trick. 

 And this is the art and science of breeding. 



Mendel's law is the present sensation among 

 students of heredity. Any one who expects to 

 acquire trustworthy knowledge of the rules under 

 which nature conducts inheritance must watch 

 the labors of the investigators who are developing 

 the Mendel discovery. Mendel gave it out years 

 ago, but the scientific world is just making use of 

 his work. Roughly stated, Mendel's law is that 

 when certain plants are crossbred, and the de- 

 scendants are interbred, a proportion will have 

 the prepotency of one ancestor, a proportion that 

 of the other, and a proportion a combination of 

 both. In other words, the crossbred form is not 

 permanent. How far the law applies to animals 

 has not at this time been ascertained. But at 

 least, the Mendel law bids fair to completely 

 upset some of the most tenaciously held deduc- 

 tions of old writers, who thought that when they 

 said " like produces like " they could make their 



