wonder mankind are disappointed in their pleasures and
expectations; for this prejudice does not only extend to blood,
but even to the very names of the breeders, and the country where
the Horses are bred, though it is beyond all doubt, that the North
claims the preference of all other places in this kingdom; but
that preference is allowed only from the multiplicity of Mares and
Stallions in those parts, and from the number of racers there
bred.

I would not be thought in this to prefer my own opinion of shape
and make to the known goodness of any Stallion, but would prefer
the latter before the opinion of all mankind. What then? It is not
every Horse that has been a good racer will get good colts; some
have suffered too much in their constitution by hard and continual
labour, whilst others have some natural infirmity that may
probably be entailed on their generation.

But the most material thing in breeding all animals, and to which
we pay the least regard, either in the race of men or Horses, is
the choice of the female, who not only joins in the production of
the foetus, but in the formation of it also. And that the female
has even the greatest share in the production of the foetus, will
be proved by this instance: if you take a dunghill cock and put to
a game hen, and also put a brother of that game hen to a sister of
the dunghill cock, those chickens bred from the game hen will be
found much superior to those chickens bred from the dunghill hen.

And here I beg leave to be allowed (without the imputation of
pedantry) one quotation from Virgil, who is supposed to have well
understood the laws of nature. In his description of the choice of