96 THE SCIENCE OF BREEDING 



cooling and alterative properties, they will effect a great 

 saving in oatmeal. 



Of whelps, the finest are generally produced from dams 

 of the middle age, from three to six years old, although 

 the first litter from a large, lengthy mother often proves 

 as clever as any subsequent one. With fox-hounds I 

 never considered it safe or judicious to breed from any 

 which had not worked fairly through to the end of their 

 second season, or until the March of that year, by which 

 time their characters will have become tolerably well 

 established. 



On the subject of breeding in-and-in, as it is termed in 

 sportsmen's phrase, or from animals of the same family, 

 great diversity of opinion exists, founded partly, I am 

 inclined to think, on the dicta of sporting authors of some 

 celebrity. Cattle breeders, also, do not raise any serious 

 objections to this system, which is not found to be at 

 variance with the production of animals of good form 

 and fashion, upon the long-established principle or rule 

 of nature, like begetting like ; but even supposing this 

 course may answer the purpose with cattle, it does not 

 follow that it should be attended with the same beneficial 

 results in breeding hounds and other sporting dogs, from 

 which something more than mere shape and symmetry is 

 expected. Having tried the experiment of breeding from 

 brother and sister, father and daughter, merely as an 

 experiment to watch the issue, I may state that, as to 

 the form of the produce, no exception could be taken. 

 They were clever as their parents, resembling them also 

 in nose and instinct, but decidedly deficient in courage, 

 less hardy in constitution, and wanting in robustness of 

 limb and frame. As far, therefore, as my own experience 

 has led me, breeding in-and-in has proved a complete 



