ANIMAL PEDIGREES 



THERE are few things in which men take greater 

 pride or from which they derive more solid enjoy- 

 ment, than in tracing out and publishing to the 

 world their pedigrees ; and we must acknowledge 

 that the proceeding itself, and the satisfaction 

 obtained from it, are entirely legitimate. For we 

 all have pedigrees ; for two or three generations 

 each one of us could give his descent, trace his 

 pedigree, offhand ; and if we fail in attempting to 

 go further back we know that this is from lack of 

 knowledge, not of facts. 



Would we learn these facts, we know that there 

 are those whose profession it is to supplement our 

 deficiencies of memory or of information on these 

 points, and who are prepared for a sum of half- 

 a-crown, to provide the enquirer with a duly 

 attested pedigree dating from the time of the 

 Conquest. For a guinea a Roman emperor can.be 

 obtained ; while the avaricious in such matters, 

 who are prepared to spend a five-pound note, may 



