HEREDITY IN GOATS 105 



On page 140 of the Report, the polled character 

 is given as dominant to the horned character in 

 cattle, and in, it is added, " probably goats " also. 



No further allusion is made in the chief technical 

 publications to heredity in goats until 1909, when 

 Professor Bateson again briefly alludes to them in his 

 book on " Mendel's Principles of Heredity." By 

 this time additional evidence rendered a change of 

 view necessary, and the author says, on page 32 : 

 " In sheep the inheritance of horns is sex-limited,. 

 and from evidence given me by Mr. E. P. Boys- 

 Smith I suspect that this is true in the case of 

 goats also." Further on in the same volume (page 

 170), when describing the phenomena connected 

 with the inheritance of horns in sheep and cattle, a. 

 footnote is inserted by the author to the following 

 effect : — 



" As to the descent in goats I have no thoroughly 

 adequate evidence. The Rev. E. P. Boys-Smith 

 has kindly given me particulars of many matings. 

 which he has made, but the details are complex 

 and I have not been able to extract a consistent 

 scheme from them. There is probably some intricacy 

 due to gametic coupling comparable with that 

 described in the next section, or perhaps to sex- 

 limitation." 



In consequence of the unsatisfactory results 

 hitherto attained in this bye-path of knowledge, the 

 writer has recently been endeavouring, by a consul- 

 tation of the excellently-arranged and carefully-kept 

 Herd Books, issued by the British Goat Society, to 



