108 THE BREEDING OF ANIMALS 



Holstein bull she gave birth to twin black and white 

 heifers last December." 



Pearl 1 has described an interesting case of triplet 

 calves from a grade Guernsey cow seven years old. The 

 sire was a young grade Hereford bull which had not 

 shown any unusual tendency to sire twins or triplets. 

 Two of the calves were heifers and had the typical white 

 face of the Hereford breed. The third calf, a bull, was 

 a typical Guernsey and in color and coat markings re- 

 sembled somewhat closely his dam. (Plate IV.) 



In reference to the breeding record of these triplet 

 calves, Pearl says: "The writer asked Mr. Walter, 

 the owner of the calves here described, to pay particular 

 attention to the sexual behavior of these triplets. This 

 was done. As has already been implied in what has gone 

 before, the male individual of the triplets was entirely 

 functional sexually. He was used in service locally; 

 got good calves ; and apparently got as high a proportion 

 of calves as would be expected from a bull of his age. In 

 regard to the sexual history of the female individuals 

 of the triplets, Mr. Walter has the following to say in a 

 letter dated April 11, 1910. After noting the fact that 

 these two supposed heifers had been killed and sold in 

 the village market he says : ' Neither of them had 

 ever been in heat/ In earlier letters Mr. Walter on sev- 

 eral occasions said that these calves never showed the 

 slightest signs of being in heat. From the account given 

 by the butcher who killed these animals it appears prob- 

 able that in both individuals the conditions were such as 

 have been described for many free-martins. Neither 

 uterus or tubes were recognized, but the vagina apparently 



1 Pearl, "Triplet Calves," Bulletin 204, Maine Agricultural 

 Experiment Station. 



