106 THE MENDEL JOURNAL 



•collect more evidence upon the subject of heredity 

 in goats. These Herd Books date back to 1875, and 

 comprise the entries of something like one thousand 

 seven hundred goats. Of this number it has been 

 possible to discover the horn characters of the parents 

 of one thousand three hundred and seventy indivi- 

 duals ; and it has also been found possible to analyse 

 ^till further the breeding of seven hundred and one 

 goats. Although the results are not perhaps entirely 

 satisfactory, yet they conclusively clear up more than 

 one debatable point ; and they will, it is hoped, help 

 to throw a little light on the elusive problem of the 

 -inheritance of horns in goats. 



First of all, the twenty-four matings of a polled 

 animal bred from polled parents, with a horned 

 animal bred from horned parents give equal 

 numbers of polled and horned offspring (6 horned 

 males, 6 horned females, 3 polled males, 9 polled 

 females). 



If inheritance had followed the same lines as that 

 in cattle, this mating would have given all polled off- 

 spring. If, on the other hand, it had been analogous 

 to the phenomena observed in sheep, all the male kids 

 would have been horned and all the females polled ; 

 which is equally not the case. So we are apparently 

 confronted at the outset with the fact that there is 

 jio dominance (sexual or otherwise) of either character, 

 ^nd that the horned or polled condition is equally 

 likely to be inherited by cross-bred goats of either sex. 



In cattle the horned individuals of the Fg genera- 

 tion are pure (namely, breed true). In sheep only 



