SEXUAL SELECTION 677 



ticular individuals of opposite sexes show a decided prefer- 

 ence for each other. Finally, Mr. apples, after attending 

 to this subject for another year, has written to me, "I have 

 had full confirmation of my former statement, that dogs 

 in breeding form decided preferences for each other, being 

 often influenced by size, bright color, and individual 

 characters, as well as by the degree of their previous 

 familiarity." 



In regard to horses, Mr. Blenkir'on, the greatest breeder 

 of racehorses in the world, informs me that stallions are so 

 frequently capricious in their choice, rejecting one mare and 

 without any apparent cause taking to another, that various 

 artifices have to be habitually used. The famous Monarque, 

 for instance, would never consciously look at the dam of 

 Gladiateur, and a trick had to be practiced. "We can partly 

 see the reason why valuable racehorse stallions, which are in 

 such demand as to be exhausted, should be so particular 

 in their choice. Mr. Blenkiron has never known a mare 

 reject a horse; but this has occurred in Mr. Wright's sta- 

 ble, so that the mare had to be cheated. Prosper Lucas'" 

 quotes various statements from French authorities, and re- 

 marks, "On voit des ^talons qui s'^prennent d'une jument, 

 et negligent toutes les autres." He gives, on the authority 

 of Baelen, similar facts in regard to bulls; and Mr. H. Eeeks 

 assures me that a famous short-horn bull belonging to his 

 father "invariably refused to be matched with a black cow." 

 Hoffberg, in describing the domesticated reindeer of Lap- 

 land, says, "Fceminse majores et fortiores mares prse cseteris 

 admittunt, ad eos conf ugiunt, a junioribus agitatse, qui hos 

 in fugam conjiciunt." " A clergyman who has bred many 

 pigs asserts that sows often reject one boar and immediately 

 accept another. 



From these facts there can be no doubt that, with most of 

 onr domesticated quadrupeds, strong individual antipathies 



« "Traits de I'H&AJ. Nat." torn, ii., 1850, p. 296. 

 « "Amoenitates Acad.," voL iv., 1788, p. 160. 



