58 COURSING 



The general resemblance of the product of your sagacity to 

 his (or her) illustrious ancestor may be striking in a degree ; 

 but take measurements and you will find wide discrepancies, 

 and even when points are well balanced and measurements in 

 due proportion, there is often something wanting when the 

 subject is asked to display his prowess ; when the weak 

 point, moral or physical, is discovered, our breeder must 

 search for it amongst his other ancestors ; and with a view to 

 the next generation must mate him (or her) with one claiming 

 descent sufficiently remote from the same common ancestor 

 and being entirely free from the blood of that dog or bitch 

 from whom he (or she) inherited the fault. 



A perusal of the tabulated pedigrees herein printed will 

 show that certain strains bear inbreeding very much better 

 than others. Where a particular dog or bitch is concerned 

 success may almost invariably attend the experiment, and yet 

 an attempt to inbreed to a brother or sister of that dog or 

 bitch may meet with hopeless failure, the probability being 

 that some constitutional weakness exists in the latter which is 

 accentuated by the process of inbreeding. Notable instances 

 of success in this particular are Scotland Yet, King Cob, 

 Tollwife, Cauld Kail, and Judge. Of these Scotland Yet is 

 the most striking example, for not only was inbreeding to 

 this bitch herself eminently successful, but it seems to be 

 possible to carry it to any extent, as witness the results of in- 

 breeding to Canaradzo, Bab-at-the-Bowster, and Contango. 

 Several great greyhounds have had four and five crosses of 

 I'ollwife, generally through her son David ; and the blood of 

 King Cob, Cauld Kail, and Judge generally lends itself readily 

 to the experiment. The question is where to stop ; and we 

 are far from advocating incestuous union, though we have 

 known even that productive of winning greyhounds. In most 

 cases puny rickety whelps would be the result, which, if they 

 escaped the ravages of distemper — a most unlikely contingency 

 —would never be worth training, and might probably exhibit 

 signs of mental deficiency or highly timid and nervous tern- 



