424 REPORT—+1899, 
Pedigree Stock Records.— Report of the Committee, consisting of FRANCIS 
GaLTon, D.C.L., F.R.S. (Chairman), Professor E. B. Pourron, 
F.R.S., and Professor W. F. R. WeELpon, F.B.S. (Secretary), 
appointed to promote the Systematic Collection of Photographie and 
other Records of Pedigree Stock. (Drawn wp by the Chairman.) 
Ixquirtas made on behalf of the Committee have fully justified the belief 
that led to its appointment, namely, that few exact records exist of even 
the nearer ancestry of the members of any deséription of Pedigree Stock. 
The names of all their ancestry for many “past generations are published 
in Stud-books, Herd-books, and other similar works, but,in other respects 
those works afford scant means for obtaining that distinct presentment of 
each of the nearer ancestry which is needed for an exact study of the Art 
of Breeding. The information as to feature and form in the books men- 
tioned above is almost wholly confined to colour, and, in the case of horses 
only, to height at the withers. Many details relating to appearance and 
action are, however, scattered over the pages of various volumes and 
periodicals, but these would require an excessive amount of labour in 
research before any complete families could be properly worked through 
for even three generations. As regards photographs, those of the 
more celebrated animals are now published in one form or another ; 
nevertheless, it has been found very difficult to obtain the photographs of 
even a few of those genealogical triads, consisting of an adult subject, its 
sire, and its dam, which form the primary molecules of every pedigree. 
The authorities who were consulted on thoroughbred horses and on purely 
bred shorthorn cattle, were hardly able to indicate a single case in which 
photographs exist of all the seven individuals—the.adult subject, its two 
parents, and its four grandparents—which form the secondary molecules 
of a pedigree. Thus the admirable opportunities enjoyed by breeders for 
making systematic records that would afford a solid’basis for the advance- 
ment of the art of breeding, have been hitherto most inadequately utilised, 
The reason is not far to seek. Heredity is a comparatively new science, 
and few persons are as yet acquainted with the character of the records 
most suitable for its study, or are sufficiently impressed with the need 
for their exactness and persistence. The most important of those 
records which it seems feasible to obtain are photographs, not merely 
pretty and well worked-up productions satisfactory to an artistic eye, but 
rather such as are analogous to the portraits made of criminals, for 
storage at the central police office, to serve as future means of identifica- 
tion. The desired photographs need to be taken under such conditions as 
shall ensure their being comparable under equal terms, and shall admit of 
the accurate translation of measurements made upon them into correspond- 
ing measurements made on the animals themselves. - There are a variety of 
ways by which the latter process may be performed, but it was only after 
many trials that a method was found capable of being used with extreme 
facility. It will be described later on; in the mean time, its existence 
may be taken for granted. The problem was thenceforward reduced to 
that of devising a self-working system by which the more important 
pedigree animals, say the prize-winners at great Shows, should be habitu- 
ally photographed under standard conditions. Before this could be done 
certain doubtful questions had to be solyed by an adequate experiment. 
