288 THE CROSSING, 4C, OP PIGS. 



by correlation, the head, and all of its appendages, would 

 be developed ; and thence, also, by correlation, the 

 hind portion of the body, and its appendages, would 

 be favorably influenced. 



Darwin's theory denies him all knowledge of these 

 principles. The facts, however, which are inexplicable 

 to him, and which most forcibly suggest such princi- 

 ples, he gives : 



"Mr. Druce," he says (p. 151, Vol. ii, Animals and 

 Plants, &c), "a great and successful breeder of the 

 Improved Oxfordshires (a crossed race), writes, 'with- 

 out a change of boars, of a different tribe, but of the 

 same breed, constitution cannot be preserved.' Mr. 

 Fisher Hobbes, the raiser of the celebrated Improved 

 Essex breed, divided his stock into three separate fami- 

 lies, by which means he maintained the breed for more 

 than twenty years (!) 'by judicious selection from the 

 three distinct families.' Lord Western was the importer 

 of a Neapolitan boar and sow. From this pair, he bred 

 in-and-in, until the breed \yas in danger of becoming 

 extinct, 'a sure result (as Mr. Sidney remarks) of in- 

 and-in breeding.' " 



These pigs, to which he refers, would not have with- 

 stood the interbreeding, which they did, before threat-t 

 ening to become extinct, had they been of the type of 

 the well-bred (?) English pigs. They were Neapolitan 

 pigs, and had not the characters of legs, &c, so much 

 reduced, as the fashion, prevailing in England, requires. 



Darwin continues : 



" Lord Western then crossed his Neapolitan Pigs 

 with the old Essex, and made the first great step 

 towards the improved Essex breed. Here is a more in- 

 teresting case. Mr. J. Wright, well known as a breeder, 



