The botanist is able to reproduce many species vegetatively, _e.g._ by cuttings, and is thus easily able to multiply examples of mutation. He can also reproduce the great majority of plants by self-fertilisation, and so experiences no difficulty in “fixing” a new form. Again, plants are far easier to control than animals; as a rule they can be transplanted without any impairment of their capacity for breeding. Moreover, they produce a greater number of offspring than the most prolific of the higher animals. The animal breeder is thus at an obvious disadvantage as compared with the horticulturist. It is only with great difficulty that he can fix the mutations which appear in his stock. “Scatliff Strain” of Turbit The history of the production of the “Scatliff strain” of turbit affords a good example of the kind of difficulties that confront the breeder. Pigeon fanciers require that the ideal turbit shall have, among other things, an unbroken “sweep,” that is to say the line of the profile from the tip of the beak to the back of the head should be the arc of a circle. As a rule this line is broken by the overgrowth of the wattle at the base of the beak. Mr Scatliff, however, has succeeded in breeding a strain which possesses the required description of profile. “In the year 1895,” writes Mr H. P. Scatliff on page 25 of _The Modern Turbit_, “I visited Mr Houghton’s lofts and purchased three or four extra stout and short-beaked stock birds. . . . The following year I mated one of these to one of my own black hens, and reared one of the most successful show birds ever bred, viz. ‘Champion Ladybird,’ a black hen. . . . Most of the leading judges and many turbit breeders remarked upon this hen’s wonderful profile, which seemed to improve as she got older instead of getting worse, as is usual in rather coarse-wattled birds. I, too, had remarked this, and it opened my eyes to a point in turbit breeding which I had never heard mentioned by any turbit judges or breeders, and which I believe I am now pointing out for the first time in print, viz. that the feathers over her beak wattle which formed her front _grew from the top and right to the front of her wattle, and not from slightly behind_, as in almost every other turbit of her day; thus, as the wattle developed and grew coarser, the front became more developed, and made her head larger without in any way spoiling the sweep of the profile. “The same year ‘Ladybird’ was bred I bred eight others from the same pair, and with one exception all turned out to be hens. There was only one other hen, however (a dun), that had this same point, but in a lesser degree than ‘Ladybird,’ and from these two hens nearly all my blacks, and several of my blues are descended.” [Illustration: A TURBIT BELONGING TO MR. H. P. SCATLIFF]