The wild mouse, rat and rabbit are self-coloured, but the domesticated forms include various piebald patterns, such as spotted forms among mice, and the familiar black and white hooded and dorsal-striped pattern of some tame rats.
No adequate investigation of this subject has yet been made, but some observations made by the author of this article, on the piebald black and white rat, show that differences connected with the microscopic structure exist.
The experiments of the latter author show that, if a gametically pure black rat be crossed with an albino derived from a piebald black and white ancestry, all the offspring in successive litters will be black; but if the same black parent be crossed with albinoes extracted from parents of which one or both are grey, then both grey and black members will appear in the successive litters.
He then proceeded to clear Pomerania of the piebald imperial host composed of every nationality under heaven, and officered by Italians, Irishmen, Czechs, Croats, Danes, Spaniards and Walloons.
The tfngan horse usually stands about thirteen hands high, is short-bodied, clean-limbed, deep in the chest and extremely active, his colour usually inclining to piebald.