Pedigree Breeding. i i i 



but retire from breeding in despair before they have learnt that better things are possible, and how 

 they are to be achieved." 



The question of in-and-in-brceding next follows, and we are told that " in accumulating all the 

 tendencies to transmission into the desired channel, and taking care that no step gained is lost 

 by dropping any subsequent link in the succession, we are confronted almost at once by two 

 difficulties. The first is that it is impossible to follow out such a methodical system without very 

 considerable in-breeding. It is always found, practically, that a man who is buying stock constantly 

 to cross with can never breed well ; and the considerations we have briefly sketched explain the 

 reason why. He is constantly introducing into his strain tendencies which he knows little of; 

 which he can, therefore, take no account of, and which crop out in the most unexpected manner. 

 Hence very much harm to good breeding, as regards true show or ' fancy ' points, has been done 

 by the stress laid in some works upon the necessity for constantly importing ' fresh blood.' The 

 successful exhibitor — or, at least, no one such who breeds the specimens with which he wins — ever 

 acts upon such a system, but depends chiefly upon successive generations of his own stock. But, 

 on the other hand, it is soon found that this course, too, has its limits, and is bounded by the 

 physical weakness and deterioration which result from too close breeding of the same strain." 



An important principle is next enunciated — viz., that the " amount of difficulty varies a great 

 deal with the object in view," and is followed by another axiomatic statement, that in qualities of 

 a constitutional character " the physical degeneracy caused by close breeding is almost always 

 entirely removed by one thorough cross ; but in a race of fowls or pigeons " — or canaries — " which 

 are bred for some pattern of feather, or other purely ' fancy ' points, such a cross with alien stock 

 is inadmissible. In this case the cross at once destroys all the creature is bred for, the feather or 

 other point being at once lost. Hence, in producing such properties, close breeding can never be 

 carried so far as to produce evils of this class, but must be modified so as to prevent them. 

 And this brings us to our second difficulty, which is closely related to, if not identical with, the 

 consideration of developing not one only but all the various points which the breeder or fancier 

 has in view." 



In combating this difficulty the mode of procedure indicated is so literally true a picture of 

 certain difficulties in Canary-breeding that we simply substitute Canary points for poultry points, 

 and again quote this authority, to whom we think the entire feather-world is indebted for the 

 most masterly inultitm-in-parvo treatise extant : — " We would provide at the very outset two, and, 

 if possible, more pairs of birds, in order to avoid any necessity for a cross until the new strain was 

 thoroughly established. This is all-important to every one who means to have any strain or stock 

 of his own, not only for the general reasons already given, but to avoid the danger of dropping, 

 unknown, the ' link in succession ' which we have seen to be so important. Thus, supposing we 

 are at any particular time paying great attention to a good crest in the Norwich, and some evident 

 fault in another point to have appeared in the season's breeding. To correct this fault a cross with 

 another family is, perhaps, necessary ; and though such a bird may be selected from a strange 

 room with an exquisite crest, from which it is supposed the course of breeding for crest is not 

 interrupted while correcting the other fault, it may just as likely be the case that he is the only 

 good-crested bird in a room of inferior-crested ones, and in that case he spoils all. More even 

 than this. There is a tendency in all animals, as Mr. Darwin has clearly shown, to revert or 

 ' throw back ' to long-lost characters, and this tendency is developed by crossing. Supposing, then, 

 two strains of Crested Norwich to have been carefully bred, but one to have been bred first for 

 feather and afterwards for crest, while the other was bred first for crest and aftei"wards for 

 feather : the result of crossing two such strains would be many young birds which ' tlircw 



