therefore be of a choice colour, a robust body, square-built,
full-breasted, with large heads, with upright and bright-red combs. Those
are believed to be the best bred which have five toes."[478] According to
Tacitus, the Celts attended to the races of their domestic animals; {203}
and Caesar states that they paid high prices to merchants for fine imported
horses.[479] In regard to plants, Virgil speaks of yearly culling the
largest seeds; and Celsus says, "where the corn and crop is but small, we
must pick out the best ears of corn, and of them lay up our seed separately
by itself."[480]

Coming down the stream of time, we may be brief. At about the beginning of
the ninth century Charlemagne expressly ordered his officers to take great
care of his stallions; and if any proved bad or old, to forewarn him in
good time before they were put to the mares.[481] Even in a country so
little civilised as Ireland during the ninth century, it would appear from
some ancient verses,[482] describing a ransom demanded by Cormac, that
animals from particular places, or having a particular character, were
valued. Thus it is said,--

Two pigs of the pigs of Mac Lir,
A ram and ewe both round and red,
I brought with me from Aengus.
I brought with me a stallion and a mare
From the beautiful stud of Manannan,
A bull and a white cow from Druim Cain.

Athelstan, in 930, received as a present from Germany, running-horses; and
he prohibited the exportation of English horses. King John imported "one
hundred chosen stallions from Flanders."[483] On June 16th, 1305, the
Prince of Wales wrote to the Archbishop of Canterbury, begging for the loan
of any choice stallion, and promising its return at the end of the
season.[484] There are numerous records at ancient periods in English
history of the importation of choice animals of various kinds, and of
foolish laws against their exportation. In the reigns of Henry VII. and
VIII. it was ordered that the magistrates, at Michaelmas, should scour the
heaths and commons, and destroy all mares beneath a certain size.[485] Some
of our earlier kings passed laws against the slaughtering rams of any good
breed before they were seven years old, so that they {204} might have time
to breed. In Spain Cardinal Ximenes issued, in 1509, regulations on the
_selection_ of good rams for breeding.[486]

The Emperor Akbar Khan before the year 1600 is said to have "wonderfully
improved" his pigeons by cros