s was held in great
esteem, the Duke of Newcastle and Sir John Fenwick, pronounced that the
meanest hack ever imported from Tangier would produce a finer progeny than
could be expected from the best sire of our native breed. They would not
readily have believed that a time would come when the princes and nobles of
neighbouring lands would be as eager to obtain horses from England as ever
the English had been to obtain horses from Barbary."

The London dray-horse, which differs so much in appearance from any natural
species, and which from its size has so astonished many Eastern princes,
was probably formed by the heaviest and most powerful animals having been
selected during many generations in Flanders and England, but without the
least intention or expectation of creating a horse such as we now see. If
we go back to an early period of history, we behold in the antique Greek
statues, as Schaaffhausen has remarked,[516] a horse equally unlike a race
or dray horse, and differing from any existing breed.

The results of unconscious selection, in an early stage, are well shown in
the difference between the flocks descended from the same stock, but
separately reared by careful breeders. Youatt gives an excellent instance
of this fact in the sheep belonging to Messrs. Buckley and Burgess, which
"have been purely bred from the original stock of Mr. Bakewell for upwards
of fifty years. There is not a suspicion existing in the mind of any one at
all acquainted with the subject that the owner of either flock has deviated
in any one instance from the pure blood of Mr. Bakewell's flock; yet the
difference between the sheep possessed by these two gentlemen is so great,
that they have the appearance of being quite different varieties."[517] I
have seen several analogous and {214} well-marked cases with pigeons: for
instance, I had a family of barbs, descended from those long bred by Sir J.
Sebright, and another family long bred by another fancier, and the two
families plainly differed from each other. Nathusius--and a more competent
witness could not be cited--observes that, though the Shorthorns are
remarkably uniform inn appearance (except in colouring), yet that the
individual character and wishes of each breeder become impressed on his
cattle, so that different herds differ slightly from each other.[518] The
Hereford cattle assumed their present well-marked character soon after the
year 1769, through careful selection by Mr. Tomk