62 PRINCIPLES OF BREEDING. 



currence among' our domestic animals, and oftener in 

 proportion as the breeds are crossed or mixed up. 

 Among our common stock of neat cattle, (natives, as 

 they are often called,) originating as they have done 

 from animals brought from England, Scotland, Den- 

 mark, France and Spain, each possessing different char- 

 acteristics of form, color and use; and bred, as our 

 common stock has usually been, indiscriminately to- 

 gether, with no special point in view, no attempt to 

 obtain any particular type or form, or to secure adapta- 

 tion for any particular purpose, we have very frequent 

 opportunities of witnessing the results of the operation 

 of this law of hereditary transmission. So common 

 indeed is its occurrence, that the remark is often made, 

 that however good a cow may be, there is no telling 

 beforehand what sort of a calf she may have. 



The fact is sufficiently obvious that certain peculiari- 

 ties often lie dormant for a generation or two and then 

 reappear in subsequent progeny. Stockmen often speak 

 of it as ''breeding back," or " crying back." The cause 

 of this phenomenon we may not fully understand. A 

 late writer says, ''it is to be explained on the supposi- 

 tion that the qualities were transmitted by the grand- 

 father to the father in whom they were TJiasked by the 

 presence of some antagonistic or controlling- influence, 

 and were thence transmitted to the son in whom the 



