28 cocker's manual. 



tience alone is necessary ; as Mr. Spooner remarks, 'nature opposes 

 no barrier to successful admixture ; in the course of time, by the aid 

 of selection and careful weeding, it is practicable to establish a new 

 breed. After six or seven generations the hoped-for result will in 

 most cases be obtained ; but even th6n an occasional reversion, or 

 failure to keep true, may be expected. The attempt, however, will 

 assuredly fail if the conditions of life be decidedly unfavorable to the 

 -characters of either parent-breed. 



"It is scarcely possible to overrate the effects of selection occasion- 

 ally carried on in various ways and places during thousands of gene- 

 rations. All that we know, and, in a still stronger degree, all that we 

 do not know, of the history of the great majority of our breeds, even 

 of our more modern breeds, agrees with the view that their production, 

 through the action of unconscious and methodical selection, has been 

 almost insensibly slow. When a man attends rather more closely than 

 is usual to the breeding of his animals, he is almost sure to improve 

 them to a slight extent. They are in consequence valued in his im- 

 mediate neighborhood, and are bred by others ; and their character- 

 istic features, whatever these may be, will then slowly but steadily he 

 increased, sometimes by methodical and almost always by unconscious 

 selection. At last a strain, deserving to be called a sub-variety, be- 

 comes a little more widely known, receives a local name, and spreads. 

 The spreading will have been extremely slow during ancient and less 

 civilized times, but now is rapid. By the time that the new breed had 

 assumed- a somewhat distinct character, its history, hardly noticed at 

 the time, will have been compleiely forgotten ; for, as Low remarks, 

 'we know how quickly the memory of such events is effaced.' " 



BREEDING FOR THE PIT. 



We do not find at the present day as much attention paid to breed- 

 ing Games for the pit as in times gone by, still many old cockers take- 

 as much pains as ever and show just as much care and attention in. 

 breeding as in an earlier day. The best breeders for the pit consider 

 the cock as ahead of all the qualities, consequently show great care in 

 selecting tiiem, as in breeding for this special purpose we must not 



