128 . Basset Hounds [ch. 



reported. If either type is recessive we should naturally 

 expect this to be the non-tricolour, which is without black. 

 U nfortunately as the non-tricolours are not fashionable there 

 were comparatively few matings between two parents of 

 that colour. Nevertheless 41 dogs, offspring of such matings, 

 are given, of these 20 being tricolour. Though the records 

 were not made by scientific men or with a scientific purpose 

 directly in view it is almost impossible to imagine that all 

 these cases can depend on mistakes, and pending the pro- 

 duction of new and direct evidence we must take the records 

 as correct. 



In the Theory and Practice of Ratio7ial Breeding 

 (London, 1889), pp. 26 and 27, Sir Everett Millais gives one 

 or two more notes bearing on this question. He says that 

 in England there were then two strains of Bassets, the 

 Couteulx and the Lane. "The Couteulx is as a rule a very 

 perfectly marked tricolour, with the tan and black markings 

 deeply accentuated. The Lane hounds, on the other hand, 

 are very weak in markings if they happen to be tricolour, 

 but as a fact they are far more generally found to be lemon 

 and white." In another place he mentions that "in nearly 

 every litter of pure Couteulx there is generally a lemon and 

 white puppy." 



If it were not that the genetic relations of yellow and 

 black pigments are, as we have seen, so complicated and 

 uncertain in other types, we might be inclined to attribute 

 the alleged production of tricolours by non-tricolours to 

 imperfect classification of **weak" tricolours, but in dealing 

 with this group of phenomena no such suggestion can be 

 hazarded with any confidence 



The strange fact that yellow mice are never pure natur- 

 ally occurs to the mind in connection with the evidence as to 

 Bassets. A comparison between the two cases cannot 

 nevertheless be instituted at all easily ; for in the Bassets 

 yellow is evidently not usually a dominant, which it should 

 be if the impurity of the non-tricolour is to be attributed to 

 a state of things comparable with that existing in mice. 

 At present the Basset phenomena must be regarded as 

 definitely unconformable. Perhaps the most probable view 

 of their nature is that they are an illustration of irregular 

 dominance, but this cannot be asserted with much confidence. 



