198 THE MENDEL JOURNAL 



Some years ago (possibly about 1901) there was a famous 

 dun hackney harness horse called Dusty Miller. His owner tells 

 me that in colour he was what he should term a " mealy or 

 biscuit dun. but he had not the zebra black stripe do^vn his 

 back."' 



It appears that Dusty Miller was sired by Djnegslt, a chest- 

 nut bred from chestnut parents, and his dam was a brown 

 thoroughbred mare sired by a chestnut. I have no particulars 

 of the colour of the g-dam. 



It has occurred to me that dun and dark brown may be 

 intimately connected, and that brown may be of the nature of 

 a pattern covering dun. To try and put this more plainly : 

 When the brown factor is absent the horse is a dun ; when it is 

 present the horse is a bro\\Ti, the dun only showing on muzzle, 

 flank, inside of thighs, &c., to which parts the darker pattern 

 fails to extend. 



I think there may be a difference in the colour of the foal coat 

 of browns. By dark brown I mean a very dark colour with a 

 yellow mark on the flank and possibly yellow on the muzzle. I 

 have known several foals, the progeny of two dark coloured parents 

 which were dark brown in the foal coat. Exmoor and other hill 

 pony foals are usually dark brown when the parents are this 

 colour. On the other hand a bay foal sometimes moults into a 

 brown, and I believe this is sometimes, if not always, the case when 

 one parent is a brown and the other bay. Such browns, however, 

 are in my experience of a nondescript dark bay or light brown 

 colour and not a rich seal brown, so perhaps they should in reality 

 be classified as bays. Until some definite distinction is made 

 between bay and brown it is impossible to analyse results. Pos- 

 sibly the colour of the foal coat may help to form a distinction. 



These remarks are not, I fear, very enlightening ; my excuse 

 for making them is that it is often assumed that black points are 

 dominant in a cross ; and the relationship of duns and chestnuts 

 seems to need closer investigation, as in one case at anyrate this 

 does not seem to have been the case. 



