REVERSION IN SHEEP 



L. L. Heller 



Animal Husbandman in Sheep and Goat Investigations, Bureau of Animal industry, 



Washington, D. C. 



THOSE familiar with sheep know 

 ihat the Rambouillet breed, a 

 French improvement on the 

 Spanish Merino, is one of the 

 most highly improved of all sheep. Its 

 color is pure white. 



On April 4, 1915, there were dropped 

 in the United States Department of 

 Agriculture experiment flock at Lara- 

 mie, Wyo., twin ewe Rambouillet lambs. 

 The one was an ordinary lamb in all 

 respects; the other was marked as the 

 accompanying photograph shows — the 

 ventral part of the body, the legs, the 

 lower part of the neck, the face with the 

 exception of a bar between the eyes, 

 and the inside of the ears being black. 



The fine-wools have been improved 

 as long and probably breed as true 

 as any of the existing breeds of sheep. 

 Yet this is not the first appearance 

 among them of the pattern here noted. 

 Markings very similar to these have 

 also been seen in black sheep of other 

 breeds. If this color pattern had oc- 

 curred but once it would have no 

 special significance and could be con- 

 sidered a mutation or sport, but occur- 

 ring a number of times as it has it sug- 

 gests the possibility of reversion to the 

 markings of some original forebear, who 

 existed perhaps thousands of years ago. 



The markings of the Barbados or 

 woolless sheep are sometimes after this 

 same pattern, and it has been noted in 

 crosses of the vSouthdown and Barbados 

 too. The Barbados being an unim- 

 jjroved sheep having coarse brown and 

 black hair with a small amount of wool 

 beneath, makes the question pertinent 

 as to whether our improved breeds 

 could have come from a similar type, 

 and whether this character has for the 

 most part been latent during the 

 past several centuries and cropi)ed out 

 only at intervals. 



480 



WHITE IAMB'S TWIN 



The occasional appearance of this color 

 pattern in highly improved breeds 

 indicates that it may rcjiresent the 

 markings of the ancestor of modern 

 domesticated sheep. (Fig. 12.) 



