HEREDITY IN CATTLE BREEDING 207 



of atavism of types in colour continually recur. 

 For instance, the white face of the Hereford was 

 unmistakably a recurrence to the Chillingham 

 white cattle, which have black noses. The latter 

 peculiarity is sometimes found in animals with the 

 choicest and longest pedigrees of our best lines of 

 blood. It is well-known that the late Lady Pigott, 

 an eminent shorthorn breeder, had found her cattle 

 were yearly getting lighter in colour, with many 

 absolutely white. Complaining of this to a visitor, a 

 first-class breeder, he said that her desire to keep her 

 places perfectly clean by annual whitewashing of the 

 whole of the buildings, inside and out, was probably 

 the cause ; and suggested that she should put some 

 red ochre or umber in the wash. This she accord- 

 ingly ordered should be done, and in three or four 

 years her colours regained their original shade. In 

 fact, ' heredity ' crops out in breeding of horses, 

 cattle, sheep, and dogs in a remarkable degree, and 

 peculiarities, after lying dormant for many genera- 

 tions, appear when least expected. I took occasion 

 to deal somewhat exhaustively with this interesting 

 question in breeding, in a paper which I read some 

 years ago at the Central Farmers' Club. Therein 

 I showed the influence of the male animal on the 

 external appearances of the offspring, and proved 

 this by Lord Moreton's cross of a ' Ouagga ' or 

 ' Zebra ' on a thorough-bred mare. The colt was 

 striped like the sire, which markings continued for 

 three generations, the stripes showing fainter each 

 successive year, although the mare had never again 

 been served by a Quagga. 



