FUR-FARMING IN CANADA 19 



Provisionally, I should doubt the statement until incontrovertible 

 evidence ig produced. 



" I am not perfectly clear what a silver is, but I take it that a 

 silver fox is to a red fox what a silver tabby is to a common tabby, 

 viz., the same thing devoid of the red or yellow element. 

 It may be difficult to disentangle the relations of the colour when 

 there is a series of gradational forms* and, in the first instance, I 

 should try to get a family in which the distinction between the 

 reds and the silvers was sharp. Then I should breed the silvers 

 together — brother and sister if need be. 



" From what you say, I infer that two silvers of opposite sexes 

 cannot be gotten to start from. That 'being so, you must mate 

 together the silvers produced which you will raise from the reds 

 produced by mating red and silver — if only reds come. But, if 

 silvers come, then mate them together or back with the silver parent. 

 " Apart from the great practical difficulties which there are in 

 breeding foxes in domestication, I think you will easily fix a strain 

 of silvers." 



Professor Bateson outlined perfectly the fox-breeding experi- 

 ences of ranchers. Those who have spent their time working with 

 gradational forms like the cross or patched foxes do not know what they 

 will get until mating tests are made. Those who have chosen two dis- 

 tinct colour types are able to breed out to the pure recessive type in two 

 generations. 



Dr. Eugene Davenport makes an explanation of the 

 Characters That & i r 



Do Not Blend action of Mendel's Law of Hybrids that will prove 



instructive to many breeders. He says: 



" When diverse characters are thus brought together two very 

 different results may follow. They may blend into a single new 

 character, in which case our figures show the proportions within the 

 blood, or they may remain distinct as two independent characters 

 within the same individual. Stature and size as well as many 

 colours blend freely, but not all characters behave in that simple 

 way. For example, white and black blend freely in the human 

 race, and the offspring of white and negro are mulattoes of various 

 p^hades, according to the respective infusions; but colours do not 

 blend in pigs, which are either black, white, or spotted, never roan 

 or mulatto. Some colours blend in horses (roan) ; some do not. 

 Some breeds of cattle have blended colours (Shorthorns) ; in others, 

 the colours remain distinct (Holstein-Friesian). 



* Such as cross foxes 



