On a remarkable effect of cross-breeding / by Alexander Harvey.

  • Harvey, Alexander, 1811-1889.
Date:
1851
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On a remarkable effect of cross-breeding / by Alexander Harvey. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    In Daniel’s “ Rural Sports” the following details are given respecting a setter-bitch and cui’-dog:— “ As the late Dr. Hugh Smith was travelling from Midhurst into Hampshire, the dogs, as usual in country places, ran out barking as he was passing through the village, and amongst them he observed a little ugly cur, that was particularly eager to ingratiate himself with a setter-bitch that accompanied him. Whilst stopping to water his horse, the doctor remarked how amorous the cur was, and how courteous the setter seemed to her admirer. Provoked to see a creature of Dido’s high blood so obsequious to such mean addresses, the doctor drew one of his pistols, and shot the cur. He then had the bitch carried on horseback for several miles. From that day the setter lost her appetite, ate little or nothing, had no inclination to go abroad with her master, or to attend his call; but seemed to pine like a creature in love, and express sensible concern at the loss of her gallant. Partridge season came, but Dido had no nose. Some- time after, she was coupled with a setter of great excellence, which, with no small difficulty, had been procured to have a breed from, and all the caution that even the doctor himself could take was strongly exerted, that the whelps might be pure and unmixed. Yet not a puppy did Dido bring forth but was the exact ’picture and colour of the cur that had so many months before been destroyed. The doctor fumed, and, had he not personally paid such attention to preserve the intercourse un- contaminated, would have suspected that some negligence had occasioned his disappointment; but his views were in many sub- sequent litters also defeated, for Dido never produced a whelp which was not exactly similar to the unfortunate cur, who was her first and murdered lover.”* In Mr. Blame’s “ Encyclopaedia of Rural Sports ” this other case is given:— “ The late Lord Rivers [says Mr. Blaine] was famed for a breed of black-and-white spaniels, one of which, having more than the usual quantity of white, he presented to us. We had, at the same time, a pug-bitch of great beauty. The attachment of this bitch to the spaniel was singularly strong. When it became necessary to separate her, on account of her heat, from this dog, and to confine her with one of her own kind, she pined * Daniel’s Rural Sports, vol. iii., pp. 333, 334.— A case very simi- lar to the above, occurring in a bitch belonging to himself, has been mentioned to me by Mr. Walker, Portlethen, in Kincardineshire.