194 PUBLIC COUKS1NG. 



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running they become, they do not generally reserve their powers 

 to the end of the course, but whatever they do, they do the same 

 or nearly so, from beginning to end. I would therefore caution 

 breeders against selecting a brood bitch which is no longer honest, 

 and also against using their brood bitches 'for pot-hunting' 

 purposes, as is so often the case. The same will apply to the 

 stallion dog, though perhaps not in the same degree, since it is 

 generally believed that the mental faculties of the offspring are 

 more dependent upon those of the female than the male. But it 

 is not only from dishonesty that the great winner is unfitted for 

 breeding purposes, but also because in all probability she has 

 been kept in an unnatural state of virginity for several seasons. 

 Tliis deprivation alone interferes with the due performance of the 

 natural functions, both prior to, and after, devoting her to 

 breeding purposes, and I believe almost all the above successful 

 brood bitches were put to the dog at their first or second heat. 

 'Titania,' I know, won the Waterloo Cup only four months after 

 breeding a litter of whelps; 'Flirt' ran second for the same cup 

 with 'War Eagle ' in her belly; and 'Kiot' never ran better than 

 when she won the Altcar Cup in October 1857, some few months 

 after she bred her first litter of puppies. 'Bessy Bedlam ' did not 

 breed 'Bedlamite', till she was five years old, but then she had 

 never previously been 'in season/ so that her case tells for nothing 

 except that being herself a good runner she was the dam of a 

 wonderful litter of greyhounds, perhaps altogether as good as ever 

 was whelped. Neither does the act of training improve the 

 constitution, so that, in every way, of two equal bitches, one put 



