Chap. XVII. EVIL FEOM INTERBREEDING. 121 



son, and sometimes even from brothers and sisters. Sir J. Sebright, 

 however, declares, 15 that by breeding in-and-in, by which he means 

 matching brothers and sisters, he has actually seen strong spaniels become 

 weak and diminutive lapdogs. The Eev. W. D. Fox has communicated 

 to me the case of a small lot of bloodhounds, long kept in the same family, 

 which had become very bad breeders, and nearly all had a bony enlarge- 

 ment in the tail. A single cross with a distinct strain of bloodhounds 

 restored their fertility, and drove away the tendency to malformation in 

 the tail. I have heard the particulars of another case with bloodhounds, 

 in which the female had to be held to the male. Considering how rapid 

 is the natural increase of the dog, it is difficult to understand the high 

 price of most highly improved breeds, which almost implies long-continued 

 close interbreeding, except on the belief that this process lessens fertility 

 and increases liability to distemper and other diseases. A high authority, 

 Mr. Scrope, attributes the rarity and deterioration in size of the Scotch 

 deerhound (the few individuals now existing throughout the country 

 being all related) in large part to close interbreeding. 



With all highly-bred animals there is more or less difficulty in getting 

 them to procreate quickly, and all suffer much from delicacy of constitu- 

 tion ; but I do not pretend that these effects ought to be wholly attributed 

 to close interbreeding. A great judge of rabbits 16 says, " the long-eared 

 does are often too highly bred or forced in their youth to be of much value 

 as breeders, often turning out barren or bad mothers." Again : " Very 

 long-eared bucks will also sometimes prove barren." These highly-bred 

 rabbits often desert their young, so that it is necessary to have nurse-rabbits. 



With Pigs there is more unanimity amongst breeders on the evil 

 effects of close interbreeding than, perhaps, with any other large animal. 

 Mr. Druce, a great and successful breeder of the Improved Oxfordshires 

 (a crossed race), writes, "without a change of boars of a different tribe, 

 but of the same breed, constitution cannot be preserved." Mr. Fisher 

 Hobbs, the raiser of the celebrated Improved Essex breed, divided his 

 stock into three separate families, by which means he maintained the 

 breed for more than twenty years, " by judicious selection from the three 

 distinct families" 17 Lord Western was the first importer of a Neapolitan 

 boar and sow. " From this pair he bred in-and-in, until the breed was 

 in danger of becoming extinct, a sure result (as Mr. Sidney remarks) of 

 in-and-in breeding." 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 interesting case. Mr. J. Wright, well known as a 

 breeder, crossed 18 the same boar with the daughter, granddaughter, and 

 great-granddaughter, and so on for seven generations. The result was, 

 that in many instances the offspring failed to breed ; in others they pro- 

 duced few that lived ; and of the latter many were idiotic, without sense 



15 ' The Art of Improving the Breed,' V Sidney's edit, of Youatt on the Pig, 

 &c, p. 13. With respect to Scotch 1860, p. 30 ; p. 33, quotation from Mr. 

 deer-hounds, see Scrope's ' Art of Deer Druce ; p. 29, on Lord Western's case. 

 Stalking,' pp. 350-353. 18 ' Journal of Eoyal Agricult. Soc. of 



16 ' Cottage Gardener,' 1861, p. 327. England,' 1846, vol. vii. p. 205. 



