THE BREEDING OF STOCK. 
939 
trations of the truth of the above remarks were then given by 
the lecturer, in cases where the male animal was superior in 
size and weight to the female, in horses and sheep of different 
breeds, in cattle, and the Manx cat. In the human race a 
tall family was often the progeny of a tall husband and short 
wife. Sometimes the opposite alliance produced the same * 
result, and sometimes part of the family were tall and the 
other part short, but it is scarcely ever the case that a mean 
or average size resulted from the union of parents of opposite 
statures. That the constitution, temper, and mental condi- 
tion more frequently follows the female parent is generally 
acknowledged, and it is considered as essential to the pro- 
duction of a clever family that the mother should be distin- 
guished by mental gifts. It is well worthy of notice the 
astonishing manner in which peculiarities and predispositions 
to disease are propagated, although such predisposition may 
not manifest itself till a good portion of a life time is passed 
away. An hereditary disease or peculiarity appears perhaps 
at about the age of fifty, and not before, and yet the germ of 
predisposition inherited from the parent must have existed 
all this period. The lecturer then proceeded to speak on 
Reversion, a term which, he remarked, was given to that 
well-known phenomenon of certain peculiarities disappearing 
in one generation and reappearing in the next, or subse- 
quently. It was the fact that, with animals when the first 
cross had proved eminently successful, a continuation of the 
cross-bred animals has by means of reversion caused all sorts 
of incongruous results to crop out, so as greatly to disgust 
the would-be improver. So strongly has this been felt by 
many breeders that they have condemned crossing altogether 
except for purposes of the butcher, or confined to the first 
cross. Indeed, at one time this was the leading doctrine of 
the most prominent men belonging to our Agricultural 
Societies, who clung with superstitious tenacity to the doc- 
trine of purity of blood, believing it to be the ark in which 
alone true safety was to be found. Time was when prizes 
w ere only given to three breeds of sheep supposed to be pure. 
Now what do we see ? Improved Hampshire Downs, Shrop- 
shires, New Oxfordshires, and others, all from cross-bred 
parentage, but now recognised as distinct breeds, and all 
considered worthy of prizes and of encouragement. These 
breeds may be considered as the successful results of crossing, 
scientifically and practically carried out, and although, no 
doubt, contemporaneously with these successful examples 
many others have been made which have ended in failure, yet 
we cannot shut our eyes to the fact that new and distinct 
