CONSANGUINITY.
Conjugal consanguinity has neither partisans nor friends. The
physiologist, physician, priest, and legislator, have always launched
against it the same anathema. All, in making war against it, knew
that it was the surest method of establishing a fixed and permanent
race; but, all, preoccupied in seeking a means of universal fusion,
thought they had found in the prohibition of this a leveler destined to
equalize everything.
It was feared that certain families would become too individualized,
too marked in their tendencies; and all, without acknowledging it,
endeavored to close a way which might lead to the engrossment of
fortunes.
Close interbreeding, in the horse, has not the same political
inconveniences; this is clearly apparent; but with us, the desire to
legislate upon and regulate everything, reducing all to a common level,
has prevailed. Equine consanguinity has not, any more than the other,
found favor.
[Illustration: ANTHONY.]
One fact, however, strikes any one at the outset who has studied the
equine races, followed, step by step, their progeny, and made himself
acquainted with their performances. This fact is:
If a horse is remarkable over all others in one of the three following
ways: personal beauty, high qualities, or sureness of reproduction; go
back boldly to his origin, and you will find yourself, at each step,
face to face with close interbreeding—that is to say, the reforming of
a race by means of itself, the result of great qualities increased by
drafts made at the source of a generous blood.
The thoroughbred race in England, which has been formed but with a
very limited number of primitive agents, and which, consequently,
soon became consanguine, has anew, and at two distinct epochs,
absorbed in every degree and repeatedly the blood of two famous
groups, represented, the first by _Byerly Turk_, _Darley Arabian_, and
_Godolphin Arabian_; the second, by _Matchem_, _Herod_, and _Eclipse_.
At the present moment, it maintains itself, thanks to a universal
consanguinity, and everything good which exists, by going back
inevitably to these sole progenitors, now forms but one and the same
family. Magnificent results have come from these alliances, and every
day it can be proved that this blood has not degenerated.
It is the same in all breeding countries, and it has been shown, (for
proofs see the journal “_La vie à la campagne_”, of the 30th November,
1863), that especially in Merlerault, the nursery of the fine French
breeds, everything exceptionally good which exists, or which has
existed, is the result of consanguinity—that is, “in-and-in breeding.”
The following is the conclusion of the author of this note:
These examples (the pedigrees of the best horses), collected with
care, will perhaps bring upon me the accusation of being a partisan
of in-and-in breeding. In principle, I condemn its absolute use;
but, within certain limits, I admit and advise it, especially in the
commencement, when it becomes a question of founding and establishing
a family designed to exercise a permanent influence upon the future
improvement of a region.
Uniting together vices of conformation, character, and temperament,
is rendering them indelible for ever. Uniting quality, beauty, and
aptitude, it is preserving the monopoly of these in a single family.
Hence, I would like, when there appeared, on the turf or elsewhere, one
of those envied types of which nature is generally so sparing, that
judicious attempts, made with patience, should fix the qualities so apt
to disappear, and collect, so to speak, all the sources whence they
emanate.
The brothers, sisters, and collaterals, should be included, but once
only, in these crossings, which might even go back, if it were still
time, as far as the grandsires and dams, on account of the resemblance
noticed between ancestors and their grandchildren.
Finally, the truly valuable and completely successful results of a
family thus strengthened should be coupled according to the rules of
intelligent crossing to the equally confirmed representatives of some
other excellent family, fit to form new offspring.
[Illustration: Decoration]