58 Forty Years Beagling 



Mills, of Montreal, but not being in possession of 

 your numbers I was unable at the time to reply to 

 him except on two points which struck me when I 

 glanced over his letter. 



"These will be found in your issue of February 

 6th (1893), accordingly I need not again refer to 

 them, except to say that in my letter I promised to 

 reply to Dr. Mills, and I would ask you, sir, now 

 that your issues from Christmas to date are at hand, 

 to do me the courtesy of accepting this communica- 

 tion as my promised reply. 



"Let us for a moment forget that there is any 

 such thing as influence of a previous sire, which we 

 will admit. Let us examine the influence of a 

 previous sire on his own offspring. In doing so 

 would it not be advisable to take two animals of 

 the same family, strain or variety, since the likeness 

 of the produce to the sire or dam might be argued 

 on the ground of selection, heredity or atavism. 

 Here, however, I might remark that should we do 

 so, and could we take haphazard 100 puppies of 

 any breed, the great majority would have a greater 

 resemblance to the sire than to the dam. 



"Let us, however, take a collie and a pointer 

 bitch, two different breeds, and compare the prog- 

 eny, first with the dam, and then with the sire. 

 It requires but a momentary glance if we were 



