MB. DABWIN ON IN-BBEBDING. 361 



Inter-breeding." He has already used the wild cattle 

 as an illustration of his argument, and I hope, by the 

 production of further facts, to add fresh weight to his 

 conclusion. His reasoning is as follows : — 



"The half-wild cattle which have been kept in 

 British parks probably for four hundred or five 

 hundred years, or even for a longer period, have 

 been advanced by Culley and others as a case of long- 

 continued inter-breeding within the limits of the 

 same herd without any consequent injury. With 

 respect to the cattle at Chillingham, the late Lord 

 Tankerville owned that they were bad breeders. The 

 agent, Mr. Hardy, estimates (in a letter to me, dated 

 May, 1861) that in the herd of about fifty the average 

 number slaughtered, killed by fighting, and dying is 

 about ten, or one in five. The bulls, I may add, engage 

 in furious battles, of which battles the present Lord 

 Tankerville has given me a graphic description, so that 

 there will always be rigorous selection of the most vigor- 

 ous males. I procured in 1855 from Mr. D. Gardner, 

 agent to the Duke of Hamilton, the following account of 

 the wild cattle kept in the duke's park in Lanarkshire, 

 which is about 200 acres in extent. The number of 

 cattle varies from sixty-five to eighty ; and the number 

 annually killed (I presume by all causes) is from eight 

 to ten : so that the annual rate of increase can hardly 

 be more than one in six. Now, in South America, 

 where the herds are half-wild, and therefore offer a 

 nearly fair standard of comparison, according to Azara, 

 the natural increase of the cattle on an estancia is from 

 one-third to one-fourth of the total number, or one in 

 between three and four; and this, no doubt, applies 

 exclusively to adult animals fit for consumption. 



