om
this practice. Mr. Spooner sums up his excellent Essay on Crossing by
asserting that there is a direct pecuniary advantage in judicious
cross-breeding, especially when the male is larger than the female. A
former celebrated breeder, Lord Somerville, distinctly states that his
half-breeds from Ryelands and Spanish sheep were larger animals than
either the pure Ryelands or pure Spanish sheep.[257]

As some of our British parks are ancient, it occurred to me that there
must have been long-continued close interbreeding with the fallow deer
(_Cervus dama_) kept in them; but on inquiry I find that it is a common
practice to infuse new blood by procuring bucks from other parks. Mr.
Shirley,[258] who has carefully studied the management of deer, admits
that in some parks there has been no admixture of foreign blood from a
time beyond the memory of man. But he concludes "that in the end the
constant breeding in-and-in is sure to tell to the disadvantage of the
whole herd, though it may take a very long time to prove it; moreover,
when we find, as is very constantly the case, that the introduction of
fresh blood has been of the very greatest use to deer, both by
improving their size and appearance, and particularly by being of
service in removing the taint of 'rickback,' if not of other diseases,
to which deer are sometimes subject when the blood has not been
changed, there can, I think, be no doubt but that a judicious cross
with a good stock is of the greatest consequence, and is indeed
essential, sooner or later, to the prosperity of every well-ordered
park."

Mr. Meynell's famous foxhounds have been adduced, as showing that no
ill effects follow from close interbreeding; and Sir J. Sebright
ascertained from him that he frequently bred from father and daughter,
mother and {121} son, and sometimes even from brothers and sisters. Sir
J. Sebright, however, declares,[259] that by breeding _in-and-in_, by
which he means matching brothers and sisters, he has actually seen
strong spaniels become weak and diminutive lapdogs. The Rev. W. D. Fox
has communicated to me the case of a small lot of bloodhounds, long
kept in the same family, which had become very bad breeders, and nearly
all had a bony enlargement in the tail. A single cross with a distinct
strain of bloodhounds restored their fertili