Chap. XX UNCONSCIOUS SELECTION. 197 



without an}- one distinctly foreseeing what they would become. 

 Our pointers and setters, the latter almost certainly descended 

 from large spaniels, have been greatly modified in accordance 

 with fashion and the desire for increased speed. Wolves have 

 become extinct, and so has the wolf-dog ; deer have become 

 rarer, bulls are no longer baited, and the corresponding breeds 

 of the dog have answered to the change. But we may feel 

 almost sure that when, for instance, bulls were no longer 

 baited, no man said to himself, I will now breed my dogs of 

 smaller size, and thus create the present race. As circum- 

 stances changed, men unconsciously and slowly modified their 

 course of selection. 



AVith race-horses selection for swiftness has been followed 

 methodically, and our horses now easily surpass their pro- 

 genitors. The increased size and different appearance of the 

 English race-horse led a good observer in India to ask, " Could 

 any one in this year of 1856, looking at our race-horses, 

 conceive that they were the result of the union of the Arab 

 horse and the African mare?" 72 This change has, it is 

 probable, been largely effected through unconscious selection, 

 that is, by the general wish to breed as fine horses as possible 

 in each generation, combined with training and high feeding, 

 but without any intention to give to them their present 

 appearance. According to Youatt, 73 the introduction in Oliver 

 Cromwell's time of three celebrated Eastern stallions speedily 

 affected the English breed ; " so that Lord Harleigh, one of 

 the old school, complained that the great horse was fast dis- 

 appearing." This is an excellent proof how carefully selection 

 must have been attended to ; for without such care, all traces 

 of so small an infusion of Eastern blood would soon have been 

 absorbed and 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, 



72 'The India Sporting Review,' 73 'The Horse,' p. 22. 



vol. ii. p. 181; 'The Stud Farm,' by 74 'History of England,' vol. i. p 



Cecil, p. 58. 316. 



