shouldered." So that in these several cases
we see a plain tendency to reversion to the hues of _G. bankiva_, even
daring the lifetime of the individual bird. With Spanish, Polish, pencilled
Hamburgh, silver-spangled Hamburgh fowls, and with some other less common
breeds, I have never heard of a black-breasted red bird having appeared.

From my experience with pigeons, I made the following crosses. I first
killed all my own poultry, no others living near my house, and then
procured, by Mr. Tegetmeier's assistance, a first-rate black Spanish cock,
and hens of the following pure breeds,--white Game, white Cochin,
silver-spangled Polish, silver-spangled Hamburgh, silver-pencilled
Hamburgh, and white Silk. In none of these breeds is there a trace of red,
nor when kept pure have I ever heard of the appearance of a red feather;
though such an occurrence would perhaps not be very improbable with white
Games and white Cochins. Of the many chickens reared from the above six
crosses the majority were black, both in the down and in the first plumage;
some were white, and a very few were mottled black and white. In one lot of
eleven mixed eggs from the white Game and white Cochin by the black Spanish
cock, seven of the chickens were white, and only four black: I mention this
fact to show that whiteness of plumage is strongly inherited, and that the
belief in the prepotent power in the male to transmit his colour is not
always correct. The chickens were hatched in the spring, and in the latter
part of August several of the young cocks began to exhibit a change, which
with some of them increased during the following years. Thus a young male
bird from the silver-spangled Polish hen was in its first plumage
coal-black, and combined in its comb, crest, wattle, and beard, the
characters of both parents; but when two years old the secondary
wing-feathers became largely and symmetrically marked with white, and,
wherever in _G. bankiva_ the hackles are red, they were in this bird
greenish-black along the shaft, narrowly bordered {241} with
brownish-black, and this again broadly bordered with very pale
yellowish-brown; so that in general appearance the plumage had become
pale-coloured instead of black. In this case, with advancing age there was
a great change, but no reversion to the red colour of _G. bankiva_.

A cock with a regular rose comb derived either from the spangled or
pencilled silver Hamburgh was likewise at first quite black; but