40 UNCONSCIOUS SELECTION. [Chap. I 



changes of this kind can never be recognised unless 

 actual measurements or careful drawings of the breeds 

 in question have been made long ago, which may serve 

 for comparison. In some cases, however, unchanged, or 

 but little changed individuals of the same breed exist in 

 less civilised districts, where the breed has been less 

 improved. There is reason to believe that King 

 Charles's spaniel has been unconsciously modified to a 

 large extent since the time of that monarch. Some 

 highly competent authorities are convinced that the 

 setter is directly derived from the spaniel, and has pro- 

 bably been slowly altered from it. It is known that the 

 English pointer has been greatly changed within the last- 

 century, and in this case the change has, it is believed, 

 been chiefly effected by crosses with the foxhound; but 

 what concerns us is, that the change has been effected 

 unconsciously and gradually, and yet so effectually, that, 

 though the old Spanish pointer certainly came from 

 Spain, Mr. Borrow has not seen, as I am informed by 

 him, any native dog in Spain like our pointer. 



By a similar process of selection, and by careful 

 training, English racehorses have come to surpass in 

 fleetness and size the parent Arabs, so that the latter, by 

 the regulations for the Goodwood Eaces, are favoured in 

 the weights which they carry. Lord Spencer and others 

 have shown how the cattle of England have increased in 

 weight and in early maturity, compared with the stock 

 formerly kept in this country. By comparing the ac- 

 counts given in various old treatises of the former and 

 present state of carrier and tumbler pigeons in Britain, 

 India, and Persia, we can trace the stages through which 

 they have insensibly passed, and come to differ so great- 

 ly from the rock-pigeon. 



