68 Scientific Proceedings, Royal Dublin Society. 



"Herd Book" respectively, publislied in 1887 and 1908, and indicates the 

 accumulating effect of this change of taste : — 



A consequence of this change is that, while fashionably coloured calves 

 have been numerously entered, some black and dun ones have been left out 

 altogether ; and so the " Herd Book " data are scanty, so far at any rate as 

 these undesired colours are concerned. 



The fashionable colours are specially weighted in the case of bull-calves. 

 Only a small proportion of these being wanted for stock purposes, few black 

 or dun ones are retained and entered in the " Herd Book." 



In the earlier volumes of herd books there is always uncertainty, because 

 many of the entries refer to animals bred long before the need for accurately 

 recorded pedigrees had become urgent, and thus the registered colour and age 

 and even the parentage of some animals may be doubtful. In the first 

 volume of the " Higliland Herd Book," published in 1885, there are entries 

 of bulls born before 1840 ; and tlie pedigree of one of these is traced back, on 

 liis dam's side, to his great-great-great-great-grandmother. In the second 

 volume, which includes only cows and their progeny, there are entries of cows, 

 and the colour, sex, and sires of eight or nine of their calves born during the 

 sixties. It is impossible that all these entries can be accurate. And as the 

 " Highland Herd Book " is not yet " closed," this source of inaccuracy is not 

 yet entirely eliminated, although it has less and less effect with every new 

 volume. 



It so happens that some of the Highland colours are hybrids, and 

 confusion arises between these and their parent colours. Roan hybrid Short- 

 horns are sometimes almost red, and are registered as such, and sometimes 

 nearly white, although it is not likely they are so registered. Blue-grey 

 cattle approximate sometimes to their black Aberdeen-Angus or Galloway 

 parent on the one hand and sometimes to their white Shorthorn parent on the 

 other. So is it with the Highland hybrids. Briudles may be nearly 

 black, red, yellow, or dun, and are entered under their apparent colours. 

 Yellows may also be registered either as reds or light duns, and duns as light 

 duns or blacks. The colours chiefly affected by this source of error are reds 

 and brindles — " some of the various shades of red have a very faint brindle 



