296 Colour and Markings in Pedigree Hereford Cattle 



Summary : The dirty nose is clearly a unit character, dominant to the 

 clean nose, and segregating independently of the other characters with the 

 possible exception of the factor for the "purple" coat. As 15 out of 41 

 claret-coated cattle showed a spot or two of pigment on the nose some 

 connection seems certain, but as the dark nose appears occasionally in 

 company with the pale brown or "yellow" coat it is evident that the 

 association is not complete. 



V. Goat t/olour, with reference to the Claret and Pale Brown shades. 



The rich "claret" or "purple" colour is a dark plum tint which of 

 late years has found much favour with breeders, though at one time a 

 pale brown or "yellow" coat was preferred. In hot climates the dark 

 coat is particularly sought after as it does not become so faded and 

 bleached as the paler red-browns. "Claret" is the deepest shade found 

 in Hereford cattle, "yellow" (actually a pale red-brown) being the 

 lightest, but intermediate shades are often met with. Not only are 

 there shades between the two extremes but the cattle vary much 

 according to the time of year and the state of their coats, so that it is 

 often most difficult, if not impossible, to be sure how a beast should be 

 classed. For this reason many animals have had to be excluded from 

 the following tables and calculations, in which only those that clearly 

 belong to one class or the other have been included. 



The claret factor proves to be recessive to that for pale brown, as 

 the matings of seven "yellow" Hereford cows with two purple-coated 

 bulls resulted in 14 pale brown calves to one dark one. This is some- 

 what surprising, as, judging by analogy with chestnut and bay horses, 

 one would have expected the paler colour to prove the recessive. That 

 the purples are really pure recessives is proved by the produce of 

 purple X purple matings, which with one exception were all dark. The 

 exception was the calf of a doubtful cow, which was probably a hetero- 

 zygote and should not have been included among the pure purples. 



The results may be set forth as follows, the pale brown factor being 

 shown by the letter B, and that for claret by C : 



7 matings BBxCC= 14 BG : 1 CC ? Expectation 15 BC. 



10 matings CO x CC = B3 CC : 1 BC? Expectation 34 CC. 



I have no records of the results of BC x BC and BC x CC, and it can 

 be only by keeping most careful notes over a number of years that the 

 heterozygous matings will be worked out. 



The pale brown coat factor is clearly inherited independently of all 

 other pigment characters, but that for claret is rather frequently accom- 



