476 



THE AMERICAN NATURALIST [Vol. LV 



INHERITANCE OF BELTING SPOTTING IN CATTLE 

 AND SWINE 



It has lonry been noted that when two belted individuals are 

 bred together only part of th(>ir offspring- show true belts. 



Taking the Duteh Belted breed in cattle, although the new 

 belted Galloway (Ashton) may later serve just as well, we find 

 that in practically all pure-bred herds there appear individuals 

 with imperfect belts and more often those that are pure black. 



Kuiper has furnished us with the most promising results so 

 far. He shows that the characteristic markings of the Lakcn- 

 velder or Dutch Belted breed may be obtained by crossing within 

 the breed or by crossing with spotted cattle. In his experiments 

 a belted bull was bred to 55 Holstein-Friesian cows and produced 

 as offspring 27 belts, 24-25 self-black, and 3-4 spotted. The 

 identity of one calf was doubtful. 



To explain these results he takes two pairs of allelomorphic 

 factors L-1 for belt, epistatic over E-e for self, and a repulsion 

 between L and E in the reduplication series 1-7-7-1. A fairly 

 high correlation exists between white feet and wid(> belts. This 

 correlation agrees closely with Walther's work on horses. 



Kuiper's work may be criticized on the fact that he has no 

 definite grounds for ;issuiiiing the piTsciic' of iilleloinorphie 

 factor i)iiirs. ![.■ ,l,„.s not nssiimc ;i fa. -tor for wliit.^ spotting 

 that will 1ilkr in of tIh^ ;niiniMl. 



Crossing the iinlividnnU tonvth.-r -;ivr 22 ^r! f-rolor.',l jnid 29 

 spotted. These rcsulls >liow that \\u- Ilolstcin-Krirsiim markinu's 



