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OMIT 1872
the whole body of 1859 1860 1861 1866 1869

the former and present state of carrier 1872
carriers 1859 1860 1861 1866 1869

pigeons 1872
with these breeds as now existing 1859 1860 1861 1866 1869

OMIT 1872
I think, clearly 1859 1860 1861 1866 1869

but what concerns us is, that the change has been effected unconsciously and gradually, and yet so effectually, that, though the old Spanish pointer certainly came from Spain, Mr. Borrow has not seen, as I am informed by him, any native dog in Spain like our pointer.
By a similar process of selection, and by careful training, OMIT English racehorses have come to surpass in fleetness and size the parent
Arab stock,
Arabs,
so that the latter, by the regulations for the
Good wood
Goodwood
Races, are favoured in the weights
they
which they
carry. Lord Spencer and others have shown how the cattle of England have increased in weight and in early maturity, compared with the stock formerly kept in this country. By comparing the accounts given in
old pigeon
various old
treatises of the former and present state of carrier and
tumblers
tumbler
pigeons in Britain, India, and Persia, we
can,
can
OMIT trace the stages through which they have insensibly passed, and come to differ so greatly from the rock-pigeon.
Youatt gives an excellent illustration of the effects of a course of selection, which may be considered as
unconsciously
unconscious,
followed,
....
in so far that the breeders could never have
expected
expected,
or even
have
....
wished
wished,
to
have
....
produced
produce
the result which ensued — namely, the production of two distinct strains. The two flocks of Leicester sheep kept by Mr. Buckley and Mr. Burgess, as Mr. Youatt remarks, "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
subject,
that the owner of either of them has deviated in any one instance from the pure blood of Mr. Bakewell's flock, and yet the difference between the sheep possessed by these two gentlemen is so great that they have the appearance of being quite different varieties."
If there exist savages so barbarous as never to think of the inherited character of the offspring of their domestic animals, yet any one animal particularly useful to them, for any special purpose, would be carefully preserved during famines and other accidents, to which savages are so liable, and such choice animals would thus generally leave more offspring than the inferior ones; so that in this case there would be a kind of unconscious selection going on. We see the value set on animals even by the barbarians of Tierra del Fuego, by their killing and devouring their old women, in times of dearth, as of less value than their dogs.
In plants the same gradual process of improvement, through the occasional preservation of the best individuals, whether or not sufficiently distinct to be ranked at their first appearance as distinct varieties, and whether or not two or more species or races have become blended together by crossing, may plainly be recognised in