GENERAL INTRODUCTION. 



Ixvii 



nut, 10 per ceut. brown, and 10 per cent, grey, after the 

 first coat was shed. 



From the Crabbet records for the last two years it 

 seems evident that the colour of the offspring is not 

 necessarily determined by the sire. If one of the parents 

 is bay the foal is likely to be bay. The bay mares (six- 

 teen iu number) had, with one exception, bay foals, 

 although the sire in each case was chestnut : the excep- 

 tion was chestnut like the sire. In three cases — with a 

 bay sire and a chestnut mare — the foals were bay, but in 

 one case a bay sire and a brown mare produced a brown 

 foal, while in another a bay sire and a grey mare pro- 

 duced a foal that became grey as the first coat was shed. 

 It looks as if the dam had more influence than the sire, 

 but it is really a matter of colour and inbreeding more 

 than of sex. If one of the parents is white or grey, the 

 other chestnut or bay, the foal is likely to be either bay 

 or chestnut ; but if the light parent is inbred the foal 

 may (after the first coat is shed) be grey, just as it may 

 be black if one of the parents is black and inbred. That 

 the colour of the parent may be stamped on the offspring- 

 even when not uniform my skewbald mare has clearly 

 proved. In this case a uniformly coloured well-bred 

 bay Shetland pony failed to prevent the yellow and white 

 skewbald stamping her own unequally shaped blotches 

 on her offspring. In Norway, as in Scotland, a consider- 

 able percentage of the foals are of a dun colour, some 

 being from the first of a light cream-colour, others of a 

 dark mouse-colour, but the majority are probably of a 

 leather or red dun hue. 



TELEGONY. 



The belief in telegony is almost universal. That 

 breeders and fanciers have long believed in '' infection " 

 is not to be wondered at ; it is a convenient explanation 

 of many of the obscure phenomena that come under their 

 notice. That philosophers and literary men, social 



