478 DOGS USED FOR SPORT. 



Third. It is desirable that all bitches, to be successful breeders 

 and parents, be impregnated previous to reaching the age of three 

 /ears. The reason for this is, that the reproductive organs are at 

 their best during that season ; whereas, at or during the third 

 year, certain anatomical and physiological changes are liable to 

 take place, owing to non-use of the organs, which render the last 

 stage of gestation, parturition, extremely difficult. 



BREEDING FOR KIND. 



Periodically some French enthusiast announces a plan for re- 

 ducing that great process of nature, reproduction, to a level where 

 it may be governed by scientifically applied rules. And, as fre- 

 quently the German physiologist steps to the front, and with pro- 

 found and thoroughly inductive logic, backed by the most careful 

 experimentation and thorough physiological researches, proves its 

 falsity. While the physiologists of both countries have long at- 

 tempted the solution of the problem, one is continually jumping at 

 conclusions, while the other toils patiently for the goal, conning 

 carefully as he goes the facts, and proving each new deduction 

 pro and con. The great Virchow, the most celebrated as well as 

 the greatest physiologist and pathologist of the age, has decided 

 that the production of the sex at will is an utter impossibility, ex- 

 cept so far as may be regulated by the psychical condition of the 

 parents at the time of the sexual act. 



PLURALITY OF SIRES. 



The admission of a bitch when in heat to the embraces of two 

 different males, even when of the same breed, is highly reprehen- 

 sible and prejudicial to good offspring, and more likely to perpetu- 

 ate the bad qualities of both, than the good of either. Even when 

 the lining of the bitch by each takes place at intervals so widely 

 apart as to induce superfoetation, the result is liable to be the 

 same. The effect is much the same as when two dogs are 

 matched for their widely different attributes, as when a bitch who 

 is imperfect in her hind-quarters is lined by a dog who is imperfect 

 in the shoulders ; the result being a worthless animal, as imper- 

 fections are much more easily transmitted than perfections. 



