440 
On the Inheritance of Coat-Colour in Cattle 
1640 we again hear of a shorthorn breed ; and a native race with short horns, 
large bodies, and black or red in colour, existed in Holderness and on the banks 
of the Tees in the middle of the eighteenth century. A new breed of shorthorns 
was introduced from Holland in the eighteenth century, and much improvement 
was attributed to the introduction of Dutch bulls, but it is said that these were 
the offspring of English shorthorn cows sent by James II to William of Orange. 
In the early shorthorn pedigrees we find some black, flecked, and spotted beasts. 
However debateable the origin of the shorthorn may be, it appears to have existed 
as a distinct breed by the middle of the eighteenth century, and possibly 50 or 
100 years previously. Its source is probably Yorkshire and Durham with Dutch 
reinforcements. The early breeders seem to have had much the same colours, 
red, roan, white, and their mixtures. One noteworthy early bi-eeder introduced 
a cross which is supposed to have become a potent factor with a red Galloway 
polled cow. The blacks and fleckeds rapidly disappeared. The proportion of 
coloui's waS; however, somewhat different. Thus from pedigrees before 1850 
we find : 
Ked E. W. Eoaus Whites 
14"5 42 38 5'5 per cent, 
and from recent statistics : 
Ked R. L. W. R. W. Roan White 
30 6'5 4'5 54 5 per cent. 
Thus the whites have remained about stationary in number, but the whole reds 
and roans have increased at the expense of the particoloured, and this even if we 
throw the red with white markings into the particolour. 
It cannot be said that this brief examination* casts much light on the possible 
components of the modern shorthorn. We do not know the actual constituents 
of the early Yorkshire shorthorn. It suggests that the white may have come 
from Holland as a w hole colour and not be a contribution of Saxon or Romano- 
British factors. We see a definite Dutch contribution and a possible Celtic red 
through CoUings' Galloway cross. We do not know any more certainly whether an 
Anglo-Saxon red also contributed. Failing this, we are thrown back on actual 
breeding experiments to disentangle possible Mendelian factors. 
(6) Possible results of the various colour matings and Mendelian interpre- 
tations. 
There are fifteen colour crossings possible with our five shorthorn colour 
categories, and since each crossing might give offspring of one of the five cate- 
gories, 75 possibilities arise. 
* See: Thomas Bates and the Kirklevingion Shorthorns, by C. J. Bates, 1897. Bell's History 
of Improved Shorthorn Cattle, 1871. B. Kudd : An Account of some of the Stock of Shorthorned Cattle 
of Ch. and R. Collin(js, 1821 ; Origin and Pedigree of the Sockhurn Shorthorns, 1822. Lewis F. Allen : 
The American Herdhook, to ichich is prefixed a Concise History of English and American Shorthorns, 
1856, and History of American Cattle, 1868. 
