12 PRINCIPLES OF BREEDING 



resulting from accidental injuries are sometimes, although 

 very rarely, transmitted to the young especially when 

 disease follows an injury and may, or may not, be hurtful. 

 The tendency to bony exostoses on the leg bones of a horse 

 from the parents contracting these through hard work on the 

 road, would be a case of the first kind. The following is an 

 illustration of the second : A black spaniel bitch, belonging 

 to Commander Harrison, R.N., had the tip of her tail caught 

 in a door ; white hairs grew from the injured part, and she 

 bore various puppies with white-tipped tails afterwards, 

 though she had never done so previous to this time. 



Imagination is believed to come into play in breeding, 

 especially with regard to colour. The colour of any object 

 at which an animal looks while conceiving, or during the 

 early stages of pregnancy, may sometimes govern the colour of 

 the young, as the following examples go to testify: 1 (a) About 

 1860, William Park, Balquhanran, Dalmuir, Dumbartonshire, 

 had a black Clydesdale mare that worked alongside a 

 chestnut gelding, and as long as she was associated with him, 

 her foals were all chestnut. When he died the new mate 

 was grey, and the first foal born after the change was grey. 

 (b) It is recorded of M'Combie of Tilly four that he succeeded 

 in preventing his black Polled Angus cows from breeding 

 red or broken coloured calves by putting up a high black- 

 fence round the paddock in which he mated them as they 

 came in season, thus preventing their seeing the parti-coloured 

 cattle of his neighbours. (c) One of the most remarkable 

 cases of the influence of imagination on the colour of cattle 

 was a few years closely studied at Glamis in Lord Strath- 

 more's Polled Angus herd, numbering about thirty cows 

 of the most highly prized strains of blood. As the results 

 of the experiment are interesting, we give them in detail. 2 

 The cows with bull-calves were annually separated from the 



1 This influence was known to the ancients (see the thirtieth chapter 

 of Genesis, in which appears a description of Jacob's practice of peeling 

 rods of green poplar, hazel, and chestnut to produce white strakes, so 

 that the flocks conceiving before the rods might bring forth cattle ring- 

 straked, speckled, and spotted). It is interesting to note that it was the 

 time of conception that was considered the important time in those days. 



2 Compiled in 1893 from information supplied by A. Ralston, factor on 

 the Glamis estate, by whose instructions the experiment was carried out 

 by Henry Lindsay, bailiff, Earl of Strathmore's home farm. 



