for he carries his shroud with him;"[507] the Arabs also, as we have seen, despise dun-coloured horses. So with dogs, Xenophon and others at an ancient period were prejudiced in favour of certain colours; and "white or slate-coloured hunting dogs were not esteemed."[508] Turning to poultry, the old Roman gourmands thought that the liver of a white goose was the most savoury. In Paraguay black-skinned fowls are kept because they are thought to be more productive, and their flesh the most proper for invalids.[509] In Guiana, as I am informed by Sir R. Schomburgk, the aborigines will not eat the flesh or eggs of the fowl, but two {210} races are kept distinct merely for ornament. In the Philippines, no less than nine sub-varieties of the game cock are kept and named, so that they must be separately bred. At the present time in Europe, the smallest peculiarities are carefully attended to in our most useful animals, either from fashion, or as a mark of purity of blood. Many examples could be given, two will suffice. "In the Western counties of England the prejudice against a white pig is nearly as strong as against a black one in Yorkshire." In one of the Berkshire sub-breeds, it is said, "the white should be confined to four white feet, a white spot between the eyes, and a few white hairs behind each shoulder." Mr. Saddler possessed "three hundred pigs, every one of which was marked in this manner."[510] Marshall, towards the close of the last century, in speaking of a change in one of the Yorkshire breeds of cattle, says the horns have been considerably modified, as "a clean, small, sharp horn has been _fashionable_ for the last twenty years."[511] In a part of Germany the cattle of the Race de Gfoehl are valued for many good qualities, but they must have horns of a particular curvature and tint, so much so that mechanical means are applied if they take a wrong direction; but the inhabitants "consider it of the highest importance that the nostrils of the bull should be flesh-coloured, and the eyelashes light; this is an indispensable condition. A calf with blue nostrils would not be purchased, or purchased at a very low price."[512] Therefore let no man say that any point or character is too trifling to be methodically attended to and selected by breeders. * * * * *