CHOICE OF SIRE AND DAM. 113 



The latter bitch also may be instanced as having been extremely 

 successful in the stud, while her own brother, Ranter, in the same 

 kennel, was a total failure. There must consequently be something 

 more than mere breeding to produce a successful result, and this I 

 am inclined to think resides in the strength of the constitution 

 possessed by the individual. 



But even supposing the horse or mare displays this constitu- 

 tional power, there is something which controls it, as we have seen 

 in the two cases already instanced of Orlando and West Australian. 

 In the former horse the influence of the sire, great as it usually 

 has been shown to be, was compelled to succumb to the combina- 

 tion of the three lines traceable to Selim and his brother Castrel, 

 while in the other this same horse Touchstone prevailed (still, 

 however, on the side of the dam) apparently only because there 

 was a combination of two very recently separated lines of Waxy 

 blood through his sons Whalebone and Whisker. The second of 

 these examples is the more worthy of note, because in tracing 

 back the lines of the sire and dam, the name of Trumpeter from 

 whom Melbourne is lineally descended is met with three times in 

 the pedigree of the former, and four times in that of the latter. 

 Here then but for the nearness of the two lines of Waxy I should 

 have expected the produce to follow the Trumpator strain through 

 Melbourne, but as I have, already observed, beyond the third re- 

 move this influence is very much weakened. We may therefore 

 come to the conclusion that it is not always superior strength of 

 constitution, nor the greater purity or antiquity of the blood which 

 determines the influence to be expected by either parent, but that 

 sometimes the one and sometimes the other is the cause. And as 

 the former cannot well be determined, the latter is the foundation 

 for the plans of the breeder, who will on the whole do well to fol- 

 low the maxims first laid down by that celebrated breeder of horses 

 and cattle, the second Earl Spencer, whose opinions were in con- 

 formity with the 13th axiom for breeders which I have inserted at 

 page 101. 



CHOICE OF SIRE AND DAM. 



The necessity for health in each parent has already been 

 insisted on, but beyond this point, which is generally admitted, 

 there are several others to be attended to. Thus, since the pre- 

 ponderance of either over the form and temper of the progeny will, 

 in all probability, fall to that one which has the superior purity of 

 blood, it follows that if the breeder wishes to alter in any important 

 particular the qualities possessed by his mare, he must select a 

 horse which is either better bred or some of whose lines will coa- 

 lesce with those of the dam's, which it is desired to perpetuate. 

 Thus, supposing a mare to be made up of four lines, two of which 

 10* 



