no 



The Journal of Heredity 



toward the production of six-nippled 

 and twin offspring. However, nobody 

 wanted a black ram, and John MacDer- 

 mid bought him in for a song, for Mrs. 

 Bell's flock. 



]\Irs. Bell was more interested in the 

 production of a twin-bearing stock than 

 in one six-nippled. This was the ori- 

 gin of the twin-bearing flock, and after 

 the sale I found that instead of having 

 no flock to look after I was called upon 

 to care for two, a six-nippled one at 

 Stewiacke, and a twin-bearing one at 

 Beinn Bhreagh. 



The principles of breeding were dif- 

 ferent for the two flocks. Mrs. Bell 

 wanted twins and was satisfied that the 

 ewes should have only four nipples, so 

 long as the second pair of nipples were 

 of the same size as the primary pair 

 and were functioning — yielding milk. 

 The principal point of selection in her 

 flock was to keep lambs having the sec- 

 ond pair of nipples as large as the first. 

 They might have five or six or even 

 more, but she considered these unim- 

 portant, provided that they had at least 

 four well-developed, well-separated nip- 

 ples yielding milk. 



An examination of her flock revealed 

 the fact that we had in the past been 

 too anxious about the mere number of 

 nipples instead of their size and general 

 development. In nearly every case the 

 supernumerary mammae were small 

 and not functional in adult life. 



This doubtless had been the reason 

 for our failure to establish the six- 

 nippled tendency as a hereditary trait, 

 so that the best nippled lambs were 

 exceptional creatures found in the 

 flocks of farmers who had used our 

 rams. The lambs purchased from 

 farmers were designated by letters of 

 the alphabet so that it was easy to 

 distinguish the ewes that had been pur- 

 chased from those of our own breeding. 



In process of time we got rid of the 

 lambs with small extra nipples, keeping 

 onlv those with nipples moderately 

 develo]:)ed. and it really was curious to 

 note how many of the sheep ultimately 



retained had mothers with the letters 

 of the alphabet in their names. (Foot- 

 note by Mrs. Bell : It should be noted, 

 however, that in nearly every case these 

 purchased sheep have been found to be 

 descendants of Mr. Bell's rams and it 

 is possible to trace each one to its par- 

 ticular ancestor — whose number is pre- 

 served m the catalogue.) 



Finding that very few of our lambs 

 had extra nipples of the desired size, 

 and realizing that it would take a long 

 time to develop a small flock, we sent 

 out an exploring expedition to examine 

 sheep of the surrounding farmers and 

 see whether we could not pick up a few 

 adult ewes with extra nipples as large 

 and well developed as the primary 

 suckling pair. Mr. Maclver was very 

 successful in this and succeeded in pur- 

 chasing no less than sixteen ewes in 

 which the secondary pair of nipples were 

 of enormous size. They not only yielded 

 milk but had evidently been sucked by 

 their lambs. These ewes were added to 

 the farmer's flock as we could not very 

 well give them identifying names as 

 their ears were already mutilated by the 

 farmer's clippers. We have obtained 

 from these ewes quite a number of 

 lambs with secondary nipples apparent- 

 ly as large as the primary pair, and 

 these have been added to Mrs. Bell's 

 flock. 



After the sale of sheep in 191 4 I 

 found myself special adviser in chief 

 to two distinct flocks, I. Davidson's six- 

 nippled flock at Stewiacke. 2. Mrs. 

 Bell's Twin-bearing flock at Beinn 

 Bhreagh and to these we speedily had 

 to add a third — the farmer's flock at 

 Beinn Bhrerigh, consisting of sheep 

 which had been rejected from Mrs. 

 Bell's flock and remained in Mr. Mac- 

 Iver's care for sale or other disposal. 



The ewes of the farmer's flock that 

 were wintered were mated with thor- 

 ough-bred Shropshire Society rams 

 with the object of improving the fleece 

 and the hope that some of the lambs 

 with improved fleece would turn out 

 to have the characteristics desired for 

 Mrs. Bell's flock, and thus enable us 



