Chap. I.] UNCONSCIOUS SELECTION. 39 



to improve the breed, and they formerly did so, as is 

 attested by passages in Pliny. The savages in South 

 Africa match their draught cattle by colour, as do some 

 of the Esquimaux their teams of dogs. Livingstone 

 states that good domestic breeds are highly valued by 

 the negroes in the interior of Africa who have not as- 

 sociated with Europeans. Some of these facts do not 

 show actual selection, but they show that the breeding 

 of domestic animals was carefully attended to in an- 

 cient times, and is now attended to by the lowest sav- 

 ages. It would, indeed, have been a strange fact, had 

 attention not been paid to breeding, for the inheritance 

 of good and bad qualities is so obvious. 



Unconscious Selection. 



At the present time, eminent breeders try by 

 methodical selection, with a distinct object in view, to 

 make a new strain or sub-breed, superior to anything of 

 the kind in the country. But, for our purpose, a form 

 of Selection, which may be called Unconscious, and 

 which results from every one trying to possess and 

 breed from the best individual animals, is more 

 important. Thus, a man who intends keeping pointers 

 naturally tries to get as good dogs as he can, and after- 

 wards breeds from his own best dogs, but he has no 

 wish or expectation of permanently altering the breed. 

 Nevertheless we may infer that this process, continued 

 during centuries, would improve and modify any breed, 

 in the same way as Bakewell, Collins, &c., by this very 

 same process, only carried on more methodically, did 

 greatly modify, even during their lifetimes, the forms 

 and qualities of their cattle. Slow and insensible 



