70 HEREDITY AND EUGENICS 



pure white with pink eyes. The original bull produced 

 these two albinos out of matings with about twenty 

 grade Holstein cows, the remaining calves being nor- 

 mal. Unfortunately the original records of the herd 

 were destroyed by fire, for the later breeding behaviour 

 of these two albinos is peculiar. FYom its manner 

 of origin one would expect the albinism to be present 

 as a recessive character in the germ plasm of this 

 herd. But the young albino bull mated to grade 

 Holstein cows produced only albino offspring — about 

 twent}^ in number. The albinos mated inter se, 

 moreover, produced only albinos, and four albino cows 

 mated to a registered Holstein bull (the original bull 

 had been killed) produced three albinos and one 

 normal. It is not certain from these later matings 

 that the albinism behaved as a simple dominant, 

 for there is no record of coloured offspring from two 

 albino parents. But, at any rate, the later hereditary 

 behaviour is different from that at the time of its 

 original appearance as a mutation, and it is not clear 

 that this change in behaviour can be explained merely 

 as a reversal of dominance. 



The albinos showed no pigment in the skin, eyes, 

 horns, or hoofs, except in one cow which had a small 

 black spot about one centimetre square in one ear. 

 There was no alteration in milk-production, but the 

 albinos were extremely sensitive to light, and grazed 

 listlessly during the day with partly closed eyes. 

 Such albinos are, of course, quite different from the 

 famous Chilhngham and Chartley herds and other 

 races of w^hite cattle. The evidence indicates that 

 in these the white is a dominant, and that they are 

 descended from original prehistoric wild white cattle 

 in Britain (see Storer, 1881, and MacDonald and Sin- 

 clair, 1882). The}^ are not pure white, but had typi- 

 cally black hoofs and muzzle, a circle round the eyes, 

 black tips to the horns, and in some cases a black tip 



