THE BBEEDINQ OF FANCY POULTRY. 79 



which he was bred, but that his superiority wns the result ot many generations 

 of careful breeding, during which his superior qualities had been so firmly 

 fixed that no ordinary shook would destroy their tendency to perpetuate them- 

 selves. > 



There is in Scotland abreedof black-faced mountain sheep, whose origin dates 

 beyond tradition, and which received no fresh blood for several centuries. 

 These sheep are very muscular and active, and remarkably hardy, as they would 

 need to be to endure the exposures and privations incident to life upon their 

 storm-beaten mountain home. " They instinctively herd together in storms, and 

 although completely buried in snow-drifts, will manage to push the snow from 

 their bodies, and form a cave over them, in which they will live upon what 

 scanty herbage may be within their reach,until help comes. Thus buried, these 

 sheep have lived for two or three weeks before they have been found and extri- 

 cated." * It was attempted to improve this black-faced breed by infusing into it 

 the blood of the Cheviot sheep, a breed inhabiting the hilly parts of the Scot- 

 tish lowlands, and claiming almost as great an antiquity of origin as the black- 

 faces. 



" ' Inthis crpss,' says the intelligent Scotch shepherd, William Hogg, '"'the inde- 

 pendent habits of the mountain flocks were lost, and a mongrel progeny, of a 

 clumsy figure, occupied the lowest and warmest of the pastures.' The cross-bred 

 animals, although retaining largely the characteristics of the original breed, were 

 not able to withstand the ' hardships and cold of winter,' and they required bet- 

 ter care and better pastures than the old race had been accustomed to. 



'"Another truth which the process of changing a numerous Stock has dis- 

 closed is, that in the produce of the first crop, and for several successive issues, 

 the figure, wool, and other qualities of the Cheviot ram, are most conspicuous 

 in the smallest and feeblest of the progeny; while the properties of the moun- 

 tain breed are more fully exhibited in the strongest and most robust of tlie 

 lambs. This misled many of the store-masters. They did not consider that there 

 was as much Cheviot blood in the coarsest (as they were pleased to call them) 

 as in the finest; though not so clearly exhibited in its external qualities. This 

 induced them to throw aside the best of the lambs and select those to breed from 

 which had apparently most of the Cheviot figure. This was an additional dis- 

 advantage ; for, as it prevailed wherever the experiment was tried, the mountain 

 flocks, in general, were smaller and feebler than they were ever known to have 

 been ; and were, consequently, more vulnerable to bad seasons, a course of which 

 happened to accompany the change.' 



" The stability of the characteristics of the old mountain breed was shown in 

 the readiness with which the cross-bred animals were ' bred back ' to the original 

 type, and the frequent appearance of the old characters by atavio descent after 

 an effort of twenty-five years to establish the peculiarities of the Cheviot. " f 



A simlar difficulty was experienced when it was attempted to cross pure-bred 

 English rams upon the old established breeds of France ; the intensified heredity 

 of which, OT prepotency, as it is technically termed, and the laokof adaptation in 

 the English stock to the climate and system of management to which it was 

 subjected, resulting in the production of a cross which proved fatally defective 

 * Stewart's Shepherd's Manual, p. 123. 1 Miles' Stock Breeding, p. 193. 



