HEREDITY. 425 



preceding generations, and is concentrated from many 

 lines of ancestry. Yet the belief is universal that the 

 acquired characters due to food during the growing 

 period has some force, and that this force is cumula- 

 tive in successive generations. All the observed facts 

 in the experience with herds and flocks point in this 

 direction. It is the same whether the observations re- 

 late to the increase in the size of breeds, which has 

 been brought about by systematic selection and feed- 

 ing directed with this special aim, or to the local de- 

 velopment of breeds under the combined influence of 

 the food supply and unsystematic selection. 



" Where both large and small breeds have been in 

 process of improvement in the same region at the 

 same time and with the same kinds of food, liberal 

 feeding along with systematic selection is always prac- 

 tised where an increase of size is aimed at, and under- 

 feeding during growth is practised when it is desired to 

 reduce the size. We have examples of these going on 

 together contemporaneously. Breeding for increase 

 of size is more common than that for reducing, but the 

 latter occurs not only in the small fancy breeds of 

 poultry and dogs, but even of cattle. When small and 

 delicate Alderney cows were a fashionable ornament for 

 parks and lawns, some of the most successful breeders 

 practised starving systematically, and at least one 

 eminently successful breeder of these animals so under- 

 fed the growing calves that it led to legal interference 

 by a local Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to 

 Animals. 



" So far as I know, all the breeds of especially 

 large horsies, cattle, and sheep have originated in dis- 

 tricts of abundant food, usually in fertile valleys or on 

 plains, and excepting fancy breeds of poultry and pets, 



