Chap XX. UNCONSCIOUS SELECTION. 213 



lost. Notwithstanding that the climate of England has never 

 been esteemed particularly favourable to the horse, yet long- 

 continued selection, both methodical and unconscious, together 

 "with that practised by the Arabs during a still longer and earlier 

 period, has ended in giving us the best breed of horses in the world. 

 Macaulay 74 remarks, " Two men whose authority on such 

 " subjects was held in great esteem, the Duke of Newcastle and 

 " Sir John Fenwick, pronounced that the meanest hack ever 

 " imported from Tangier would produce a finer progeny than 

 " could be expected from the best sire of our native breed. 

 " They would not readily have believed that a time would 

 '" come when the princes and nobles of neighbouring lands 

 " would be as eager to obtain horses from England as ever the 

 " English had been to obtain horses from Barbary." 



The London dray-horse, which differs so much in appearance 

 from any natural species, and which from its size has so 

 astonished many Eastern princes, was probably formed by the 

 heaviest and most powerful animals having been selected 

 during many generations in Flanders and England, but without 

 the least intention or expectation of creating a horse such as 

 we now see. If we go back to an early period of history, we 

 behold in the antique Greek statues, as Schaaffhausen has 

 remarked, 75 a horse equally unlike a race or dray horse, and dif- 

 fering from any existing breed. 



The results of unconscious selection, in an early stage, are 

 well shown in the difference between the flocks descended from 

 the same stock, but separately reared by careful breeders. 

 Touatt gives an excellent instance of this fact in the sheep 

 belonging to Messrs. Buckley and Burgess, which " have been 

 " purely bred from the original stock of Mr. Bakewell for 

 '•' upwards of fifty years. There is not a suspicion existing in 

 " the mind of any one at all acquainted with the subject that 

 " the owner of either flock has deviated in any one instance 

 " from the pure blood of Mr. Bakewell's flock; yet the differ- 

 " ence between the sheep possessed by these two gentlemen 

 " is so great, that they have the appearance of being quite 

 iC different varieties." 76 I have seen several analogous and well- 



' 4 < History of England,' vol. i. p. 316. 

 - a ' Ueber Besfandigkeit der Arten.' ?g Y ouatt on Sheep, p. 315. 



