236 AMERICAN CATTLE. 



shank, Sittyton, near Aberdeen,) there is every year dropped 

 one, or at most two, white calves, which, in order to prevent the 

 introduction of this color among the cattle, are invariably sold, 

 and sent away. In 1849, however, concurrently with the white- 

 washing of all the farm-steadings, the very large number of 

 twelve white calves were produced. And the like occurrence 

 happened the same year also, in the herd of an extensive breeder 

 of the same kind of stock, in Yorkshire, in connection with the 

 like process of white-washing this process having, in both 

 cases, been very extensively carried out before the breeding 

 season began, with the view of preventing the breaking out of 

 the pleuro-pneumonia, then epidemic in the neighborhood, and 

 very destructive.* 



"At the time when a stallion was about to cover a mare, the 

 stallion's pale color was objected to, whereupon the groom, know- 

 ing the effect of color upon horses' imaginations, presented before 

 the stallion a mare, of a pleasing color, which had the desired 

 effect of determining a dark color in the offspring. This is said 

 to have been repeated with success in the same horse more than 

 once. 



"I was told (Mr. M'Combie writes me,) by an old servant of 

 mine, Morrice Smith, that when he was a servant in the parish 

 of Glass, (Aberdeenshire,) a black bull served a black cow at the 

 time when a white mare passed them, and that the produce was 

 twin white calves. There were no white cattle upon the farm 

 where this occurrence happened.f 



" * Communicated by Mr. Cruickshank, who says further, that he has had too 

 many proofs of the agency of the cause in question, to allow him entertaining any 

 doubt on the subject." 



" t My friend, Dr. J. M. Duncan, of Edinburgh, writes me that he has ' more than 

 once heard farm-servants say, that it is a sure plan to get a white foal, to hang up a 

 pure white sheet before the mare when she conceives.' Probably hanging up such 

 a sheet in the stable during the whole period of pregnancy would be equally 

 effectual." 



