SHORTER ARTICLES AND DISCUSSION 



ON TRICOLOR COAT IN DOGS AND GUINEA-PIGS 



After reading Dr. Castle's short article on this subject I 

 want to make a few remarks. His explanation of the peculiar 

 inheritance of the lemon and white and tricolor colors in Gal- 

 ton's Bassett hounds will have to be somewhat modified. For it 

 is impossible to com pare tricolor dogs and tricolor guinea-pigs. 

 Tricolor dogs are never irregularly spotted with black and yel- 

 low, as tricolor guinea-pigs, cats or rabbits, but they are in 

 reality either black and tan, or else sable, spotted with white. 

 My attention being drawn to the subject of tricolor dogs by 

 Gallon's paper, I have never neglected an opportunity to ob- 

 serve «!o W of this color, in dog-shows and from illustrations. 

 Some tricolor breeds, as the fox terrier, are black and tan, 

 spotted with white, others, as nearly all the hounds, are sable, 

 still others, such as collies, may be either black and tan or 

 sable, spotted with white. I have never seen an exception, such 

 as a dog with a yellow spot on the back and a black foot. 



For the rest, I think Dr. Castle's explanation is quite correct; 

 it all depends upon the place of the spots upon a sable dog, 

 whether these will be yellow or black. A spot on a dog of 

 sable color, e. g., a fox hound, will always be black if it is on the 

 animal's back. If n the muzzle, or on a foot, or far down on 

 the side, it will always be yellow, a spot, e. g., on the shoulder 

 may be partially black, partially yellow, shading off from one 

 color into the other. 



It is of course possible that some of the Bassett hounds in 

 the pack recorded by Galton were real yellow and whites, and 

 we know from the evidence of breeders of dachshunds that yel- 

 low can be dominant over black and tan or sable in dogs. So it 

 may be possible that in that pack two real lemon-and-whites 

 (e. g., such as had a yellow spot on the back) have sometimes 

 given tricolor young, but in those cases in which two tricolor 

 parents gave lemon and white offspring, I feel sure, such young 

 were of that color only because they happened not to be pig- 

 mented in a spot where sable dogs show black color. 



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