Imfroi'e.vext IX EcoxoMic Qualities also Possible. 115 



moss flower. That is the rose-king. A httle green leaf grows out of his head, which is his royal feather.- He is 

 the only one on the rose-bush ; and he it was who sighed. 



Under the trees, in the hollow, was a great puddle, and here all the pigs Lny, big pigs and little ones. The place 

 was to them so beautiful, and they were all so clever, and so fat ! " Oui ! oui !" they kept on saying ; it was all the 

 French they knew, but even that was something. 



The old ones lay still and meditated ; the little ones were very busy, and never quiet. One little porker in 

 particular had a twist in his tail, just like a ring, and this ring was his mother's pride. She was always looking at 

 it, and she thought all the rest were looking at it, and thinking only of that ring. But they were not ; they were 

 thinking only of themselves, and of what was useful, and of the reality of things. 



They had always heard that the acorns grew under the trees, and so they grubbed up the ground. But there 

 came this quite little pig — it is always the young people who start these new-fangled notions — and he affirmed that 

 it was no such thing ; they fell from the branches, for one had just fallen down on his head ; the idea struck him 

 at once, and he had made observations, the result of which was that he was quite certain on this point. The 

 old ones put their heads together over it. " Humph !" they said, " Humph ! we only want the acorns ; whatever is 

 good to cat is good, and we can eat anything." And all the rest cried, " Oui ! oui !" and the little philosopher got 

 no thanks. But the mother— she looked lovingly at her little porker, the one with the ring in his tail. " With all 

 this one must not overlook the beautiful," she said. 



And the rose-king still sat in the cold, damp weather, and sighed, " Gone, gone ! all the beautiful is gone, and 

 the pigs are the lords of the forest!" But the old mother sow thought that was not right. "There is always 

 sonuboily who has a soul for the beautiful," she said ; and she looked again— w lovingly !— at her little porker 

 with the twist in his tail. 



These " fancy points," then, are to our amateur what the " twist in his tail " was to the 

 mother of the httle porker. To lose them would be to break his heart ; he admires them and 

 loves them, and were it not for their sake he would never spend the time, and thought, and money 

 he does in maintaining those breeds, which without him would be lost, and the loss of which would 

 be irreparable. 



We have thus shown how "the knowledge, enthusiasm, and patient perseverance of the 

 fancier are necessary to improve and maintain any breed in perfection for even the utilitarian." 

 But it may still be asked, If in the fancier's hands these breeds have lost some of even the original 

 economic value they had, how then ? The answer to this aho is very simple, and consists in 

 the fact that however much these qualities have diminished, they usually reappear in all their 

 original perfection in the first cross ; and as farmers or market-breeders usually employ such 

 first crosses, which are better for nearly all purposes, every practical end is still secured. Thus, 

 supposing a strain of Brahmas to have deteriorated in laying, and a strain of Houdans to have 

 suffered in the same way, through long breeding to merely fancy standards, and omitting to select 

 the best layers ; the chickens produced by crossing these two families will in almost every case 

 reproduce the faculty in all its original perfection. This is a fact we have seen often, and it 

 further establishes the truth demonstrated by Mr. Darwin on other evidence,* that " the very act 

 of crossing gives an impulse to reversion, as shown by the appearance of long-lost characters," 

 and the destructive effect of which on his own well-known theory of development it is very strange 

 that this eminent naturalist does not see. 



As we have said in our last chapter, the improvement of any breed in laying or other nscfnl 

 qualities is, however, equally possible with the development of mere fancy characteristics ; and 

 though this matter is entirely in the hands of market-breeders themselves, we are far from denying 

 that shows and fanciers might do more than they have done in even these respects. To give prizes 

 to the best layers we have seen would be impossible ; the matter could not be decided in the 

 show-pen itself, and to determine it by evidence would be in many respects unsatisfactory. But 



• "Variation of Animals and riants under Domestication." J 



