186 TALES AND TRAITS OF SPORTING LIFE. 



we shall generally find tliat such cocktails are as nearly 

 tliorong-li-bred as possible, and after all^ it is safer to keep 

 to the genuine article. When, certainly, we see a fine 

 powerful three-parts bred horse, with plenty of substance 

 and style about him, a good head, fine shoulders, clean 

 hocks, and so forth, we feel willing- enough to have a few 

 more like him. But in this case we have a very forcible 

 illustration of the fallacy of a proverb, for ^^ like does not 

 get like." Put the clever three-parts bred stallion to the 

 equally clever three-parts bred mare, and can we do so 

 with the assurance that they will reproduce anything as 

 good as themselves ? Most decidedly not. The great 

 point, the very foundation of the personal excellence of 

 the animal we have before us, centres on his being by a 

 thorou2:h-bred horse — a recommendation of which his own 

 stock in turn would be as signally wanting. Nothing can 

 be finer, as the experience of our recent Christmas shows 

 went to prove, than the first cross between the Shorthorn 

 bull and the Aberdeen cow ; but what would be the result 

 of crossing these crosses ? Disappointment, uncertainty, 

 and a thorough sacrifice of all purity of type, either from 

 one breed or the other. A man who went on in this way 

 for generations might eventually do something towards 

 establishing a new variety of breed ; but this, with such 

 sorts as the Shorthorn and Polled already at our hand, would 

 be scarcely worth the time and trouble ; and I am not very 

 sanguine of any enterprising individual inventing a better 

 material for making a hunter than that he can get direct 

 from the thorough-bred horse. What are the three great 

 essentials of the modern hunter but speed, power, and 

 courage ? and where shall we get these but direct from 

 the thorough-bred sire ? There is nothing less warranted 

 than the supposition that the English race-horse has 



