BREEDING AND WHELPING 317 



consigned to the oblivion of the lethal chamber, where the 

 thoroughbred seldom finds its way. And if as many as 500 

 undesirables are destroyed every week at one such institution, 

 'tis clear that the ill-bred mongrel must soon altogether 

 disappear. But the chief factor in the general improvement 

 of our canine population is due to the steadily growing care 

 and pride which are bestowed upon the dog, and to the 

 scientific skill with which he is being bred. 



Admitting that the dogs seen at our best contemporary 

 shows are superlative examples of scientific selection, one has 

 yet to acknowledge that the process of breeding for show points 

 has its disadvantages, and that, in the sporting and pastoral 

 varieties more especially, utility is apt to be sacrificed to 

 ornament and type, and stamina to fancy qualities not always 

 relative to the animal's capacities as a worker. The stand- 

 ards of perfection and scales of points laid down by the 

 specialist clubs are usually admirable guides to the uninitiated, 

 but they are often unreasonably arbitrary in their insistence 

 upon certain details of form generally in the neighbourhood 

 of the head while they leave the qualities of type and 

 character to look after themselves or to be totally ignored. 



It is necessary to assure the beginner in breeding that points 

 are essentially of far less moment than type and a good con- 

 stitution. The one thing necessary in the cultivation of the 

 dog is to bear in mind the purpose for which he is supposed 

 to be employed, and to aim at adapting or conserving his 

 physique to the best fulfilment of that purpose, remembering 

 that the Greyhound has tucked-up loins to give elasticity and 

 bend to the body in running, that a Terrier is kept small to 

 enable him the better to enter an earth, that a Bulldog is 

 massive and undershot for encounters in the bullring, that the 

 Collie's ears are erected to assist him in hearing sounds from 

 afar, as those of the Bloodhound are pendant, the more 

 readily to detect sounds coming to him along the ground while 

 his head is bent to the trail. Nature has been discriminate 

 in her adaptations of animal forms, and the most perfect 



