236 AMERICAN CATTLE. 



shank, Sittyton, near Aberdeen,) there is every year dropped 

 one, or at most two, white calves, which, in order to prevent the 

 introduction of this color among the cattle, are invariably sold, 

 and sent away. In 1849, however, concurrently with the white- 

 washing of all the farra-steadings, the very large, number oi 

 twelve white calves were produced. And the like occurrence 

 happened the same year also, in the herd of an extensive breedei 

 of the same kind of stock, in Yorkshire, in connecti* with the 

 like process of white-washing — this process having, in hot! 

 cases, been very extensively carried out before the breeding 

 season began, with the view of preventing the breaking out ol 

 the pleuro-pneumonia, then epidemic in the neighborhood, anc 

 very destructive.* 



"At the time when a stallion was about to cover a mare, the 

 stallion's pale color was objected to, whereupon the groom, know 

 ing the effect of color upon horses' imaginations, presented before 

 the stallion a mare, of a pleasing color, which had the desirec 

 effect of determining a dark color in the offspring. This is saic 

 to have been repeated with success in the same horse more thai 

 once. 



"I was told (Mr. M'Combie writes me,) by an old servant o{ 

 mine, Morrioe Smith, that when he was a servant in the parisl 

 of Glass, (Aberdeenshire,) a black bull served a black cow at th( 

 time when a white mare passed them, and that the produce wai 

 twin white calves. There were no white cattle upon the fam 

 where this occurrence happened. f 



" * Communicated by Mr. Crulckshank, who says further, that he has had to 

 many proofs of the agency of the cause in question, to allow him entertaining an 

 doubt on the subject." 



" + My ftiend, Dr. J. M. Duncan, of Edinburgh, writes me that he has ' more tha 

 once helird ftirm-servants say, that it is a sure plan to get a white foal, to hang up 

 pure white sheet before the loare when she conceives.* Probably hanging up snc 

 a sheet In the stable during the whole period of pregnancy would be equall 

 elTectual." 



