On a remarkable effect of cross-breeding / by Alexander Harvey.

  • Harvey, Alexander, 1811-1889.
Date:
1851
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On a remarkable effect of cross-breeding / by Alexander Harvey. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    36/48 (page 28)
    It appears that many breeders of stock are impressed with the belief, that certain colours present to the eye of the pa- rent animals, and particularly of the female, at the time and in the act of their being coupled together,—and to the eye of the female both before and during her pregnancy, influ- ence the colour of the progeny; and that they make this belief a practical principle of action in the breeding of them stock, in order either to prevent or to seem’e the admixtime of any particular coloim in the ofiPspiIng dlfierent from that of the parent animals. “We know,” says an anonymous writer, “ a gi’eat 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 kind of stock in this county informs me, that he extends this rule to the steadings in which his cattle are kept. To illustrate generally the groimds of this belief and prac- tice, 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 field there jumped into the other field an ox, of a white colour, with black spots, and horned, which went with the cow till she was brought to the bull,—an animal of the same colour and breed as herself. Mr. Mustard had not a horned animal in his possession, nor any with the least white on it; and yet the produce of this (black and polled) cow and bull was a black-and-?<;/«Ve calf, with horns.^ (b) In 1849, twenty cows of the black polled Angus breed,— belonging to Mr. William M'Combie, in this county, and whose stock is perhaps the finest in the kingdom,—produced as many calves, all of them black and polled, except one single calf, which was 7/ellow-and-white spotted. Mr. M'Combie had, as usual with him, taken the precaution of causing the cows, both before and during their pregnancy, to mix with none save per- fectly black cattle, except in respect of the mother of this calf, which cow had unwittingly been put to an out-farm, to be starv- * “ North of Scotland Gazette ” nowsiiaper, for July 17, 1849. t liibrary of Society of Useful Knowledge, volume on Cattle, p. 171.