BREEDING OF STOCK. 605 
nose, a protuberant lip, and a dark skin in her progeny, 
sully the honour of a Virginian lady. 
Perhaps there have been more good short-horns of a white 
than of any other colour, although it is now very unpopular 
—unpopular, because it betrays dirt and it is difficult to 
keep unsullied; and erroneously unpopular, as implying 
weakness of constitution. It is as hardy as any colour. 
Stick to facts and not to fancies. In what colour does 
nature robe the animals which spend their lives amid the 
regions of eternal snow? What is the predominant colour 
in the Arctic hare, the Esquimaux dog, and the Polar bear ? 
Of what colour are the body ends of nearly all feathers, 
especially the feathers of all water-fowl occupying cold 
latitudes? What colour has instinct and experience alike 
sanctioned as the proper one to husband and preserve the 
heat of the human body ? Let no man condemn white colour 
in his ox as a sign of 44 nesh. v A wffiite cow may be 44 nesh/’ 
but the same cow would have been as 44 nesh,” or 44 nesher,” 
if she had been of any other colour. 
After noticing the peculiar predominance of the character¬ 
istics of the male sex, he said that, coupled with another 
great truth, viz., the dominance of faculties impressed upon 
and handed down through several generations, it will be 
found to be true in the main that in crosses it is better to 
seek the 44 constitution 99 from the dam, and the qualit} 7 and 
form from the sire, than the opposite. Referring to the 
custom of close breeding, which the lecturer thought had pro¬ 
duced the best animals he had seen, the lecturer explained 
drawings of such animals and recounted the high value set 
upon them by eminent agriculturists. In forcible and 
eloquent terms Dr. Hitchman enforced a proposition that the 
Royal Society should furnish its members with accurate 
portraits of winners of the gold medals of the society, and 
passed on to point out that the great thing to be avoided is 
breeding from a diseased, deformed, or defective animal; a 
hereditary taint becomes by close breeding frightfully con¬ 
firmed, and difficult to eradicate. The lecturer concluded by 
further enforcing the following propositions: 
1. That man has been endowed with the means of con- 
trollin'!: and modifying the forms of all animals. 
2. That such modified forms can be handed down to the 
progeny, but, being departures from the primitive or natural 
type, the form can only be maintained by assiduous attention 
on the part of the breeder. 
3. That not only because the qualities of the male can be 
immediately brought to bear upon larger numbers, but also 
