46 Forty Years Beagling 



a new standard, I'll say no! There is a limit at 

 which an increase of size will and does stop, and 

 when that hmit is reached we have a uniformity in 

 conformation which can not or never has been 

 secured by breeding from dwarfs and culls. Can 

 the foxhound be made or grown large by breeding 

 from the largest? The same applies to the blood- 

 hound. Select any foxhound or bloodhound which 

 has been from some cause stunted. Should it be a 

 female it will produce back to the original size of 

 its kind, or if a male, its progeny will conform in 

 size to its breed. 



"I have bred 14%-inch beagle dogs to 15^-inch 

 beagle bitches and in no instance has the produce 

 of any of them exceeded an average of the sire and 

 dam, not once, but many times. On the other hand, 

 I have bred 13 to 13l/2-inch dogs to like bitches 

 and seven-tenths of the produce exceeded either 

 sire or dam. Possibly I could have prevented it by 

 stinting food, etc., in puppyhood, but that is cruelty 

 to animals and against principle. Let us take one 

 instance and we can find many. Damper, owned 

 by Mr. Crane, of Dorset, England, was 9 inches 

 high, his son Barrister was a 10-inch dog, whose 

 son Marchboy was 11 inches; another remove and 

 we have Bannerman, 11% inches; still another re- 

 move brings Boyal Kreuger, 12% inches, while 



