IN-BEEEDING — OUT-CROSSING. 47 



With regard to him also, tliis superiority of the female descent 

 holds good, as he got, besides a great number of more than use- 

 ful mares, only two prominent sons, The Wizard and Ruy Bias, 

 of whom the former, although himself a good racehorse, scarcely 

 left any traces in Germany, the country of his adoption. 



Now if we consider the question, what sort of crosses in the 

 different strains of blood have recommended themselves as most 

 desirable — although within the thoroughbred race there cannot, 

 properly speaking, be any question of a cross, as understood in 

 zoology, because the whole breed is more or less related — we 

 naturally come to the conclusion that the breeder is involun- 

 tarily forced into breeding within close relationship by the en- 

 deavor to adhere to the families of established reputation, and 

 within them to use for his purpose none but their most prom- 

 inent members. In the commencement of the race we notice 

 numerous cases of incest, logically accounted for, however, by 

 the desire to mate the then existing and not too numerous indi- 

 viduals of tried excellence, and thereby perpetuate that quality. 

 In the pedigree of Eclipse even occurs a glaring instance of 

 incest, the grand-dam of Betty Leedes, who was the great 

 grand-dam of Eclipse, having been got by Spanker from his 

 own dam. The more the breed develojied, the less pressing 

 grew the necessity for close relationship, but in the days of 

 Eclipse, bred in 1764, and his immediate descendants, the need 

 still existed to a great extent, for by the general stud book a 

 score of horses may be proved to have been got by sons of 

 Eclipse from daughters of the same horse, but this alliance 

 never produced anything extraordinary. Even in the present 

 century many cases of incestuous breeding have occurred, but 

 very few of them have proved successful. I shall have to make 

 some remarks on two of their number (Juliana, bred 1810, and 

 Valentine, bred 1832) later on. 



Opinions as to whether relationship in parents is advantage- 

 ous, and, if so, to what degree and where it begins to be in- 

 jurious, differ very much even in our own days in England. 



The thoroughbred is, with regard to this subtle question, 

 especially adapted as a field for study and experiment, because 



