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DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 

 Vol. VI Washington, D. C, April 24, 191 6 No. 4 



A SEX-LIMITED COLOR IN AYRSHIRE CATTLE* 



By Edward N. Wentworth, 

 Professor of Animal Breeding, Kansas Agricultural Experiment Station 



TYPES OF INHERITANCE AS RELATED TO SEX 



Two general types of inheritance as related to sex exist, aside from the 

 ordinary secondary sex characters. Sex-linked inheritance depends on 

 the great mass of hereditary factors that have been shown to be linked in 

 transmission to the sex-determining factors; while sex-limited factors 

 follow the simple Mendelian scheme of inheritance, but show a reversal 

 of dominance in the two sexes. Frequently these two latter terms are 

 used synonymously, but since there is a distinction between the two 

 classes of transmission, and since the term "sex linked" is so much 

 more descriptive of the hereditary phenomena to which it has been 

 applied than is the term "sex limited," the foregoing terminology is used. 



HISTORICAL REVIEW 



The classical case of sex-limited inheritance was reported by Wood (7) , 

 who made reciprocal crosses of the Dorset sheep, a breed horned in 

 both sexes, with the Suffolk, a breed polled in both sexes. All Fj 

 individuals were the same, so far as the type of cross was concerned, the 

 males being homed and the females polled. In the Fj generation the 

 fact that dominance differed in the two sexes resulted in three males 

 being horned to one being polled, and three females being polled to one 

 being homed. 



Similarly in 191 2 the writer reported a pair of rudimentary teats in 

 swine, located on the lower part of the scrotum of the male and on the 

 inner thighs of the female, behind the inguinal pair, which presented the 

 same phenomenon in transmission, the character being dominant in the 

 male and recessive in the female. 



Gerould (2)^ reported in 1911 on the inheritance of yellow and white in 

 the common clover butterfly (Colias philodice). White is dominant to 



1 Paper No. 3 from the Laboratory of Animal Technology, Kansas Agricultural Experiment Station. 



2 Reference is made by number to "Literature cited," p. 147. 



Journal of Agricultural Research, Vol. VI, No. 4 



Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C. Apr. 34, 1916 



df Kans. — 3 



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