On the foetus in utero : as inoculating the maternal with the peculiarities of the paternal organism in a series of essays now first collected / by Alexander Harvey.

  • Harvey, Alexander, 1811-1889.
Date:
1886
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the foetus in utero : as inoculating the maternal with the peculiarities of the paternal organism in a series of essays now first collected / by Alexander Harvey. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    to the eye of the parent animals, and particularly of the female, at the time and in the act of their being conpled together,—and to the eye of the female both before and during her pregnancy, influence the colour of the progeny; and that they make this belief a practical principle of action in the breeding of their stock, in order either to prevent or to secure the admixture of any particular colour in the off- spring different from that of the parent animals. We know, says an anonymous writer, a great breeder of pure Angus stock [black polled breed], who makes it a rule to have every animal about his farm of a black colour, down to the very poultry.* And an eminent breeder of the same stock in this county informs me that he extends this rule to the steadings in which his cattle are kept. To illustrate generally the grounds of this belief and practice the following cases may be cited :— (a) A black polled [Angus] cow, belonging to Mr. Mustard, a farmer in Forfarshire, came into season while pasturing in a field bounded by that of a neighbouring farmer. Out of this last there iumped into the other field an ox, of a xoliitc colour, with black spots, and hm-ned, which went with the cow till she was brought to the bull,-8n animal of the same colour and breed as herself. Mr Mustard had not a horned animal in his possession nor any ^ith the least white on it : and yet the produce of this (black and polled) cow and bull was a black-and-«'/n7r calf, with horvsA ib) Last year (1849) twenty cows of the black polled Angus breed.-bcdonging to Mr. William M'Combio, in this county, and * North of Scotland Gazette newspaper for July 17, 18-lj|- + Libn.rv of Society of Useful Knowledge, volume on Cattle, 171 -This seems to bo the same case as that given by Dr. Allen Thomson, in Cyc. Anat. and Phys., art. Generation, Vol. ii- V- •i'*-