GENERAL DISCUSSION. 



95 



were heterozygous in respect to N and R. Consequently 4 kinds of zygotes 

 are to be expected in F3 ; and expectation was realized as indicated in 

 table 68. 



Table 68. 



In the case where both parents are F, or F3 it is impossible to summate 

 results, since the gametic formulae of the different parents are so diverse; 

 but the same types of solid blacks, black with trace of red in the males, 

 Game-colored males and females, and Game with red replaced by white 

 repeatedly occur. My plan of increasing red in the Dark Brahmas met 

 with wholly unexpectedly prompt success, but not in the way anticipated. 

 The result was not due to selection, but to the recombination of the factors 

 necessary to make the Game plumage coloration. 



(2) Production of a buff race by selection. The second test was directed 

 toward the production de novo of a new buff race from a Game fowl. 



As is well known, all of our red and "buff" races, hke the Buff Leg- 

 horn, Rhode Island Red, and others, have been derived from the Buff 

 Cochin that came to us from China. The fact that a buff bird has, so far 

 as I have been able to learn, not been produced in western countries indi- 

 cates the probabiUty that it can not be so produced at will; but the attempt 

 seemed worth while. 



I began with a Black Breasted Red Game because its plumage color is 

 that of the primitive ancestor of domesticated poultry, and on that hypoth- 

 esis the ancestor of the buff races. If these buff races were produced by 

 extending the red through selection of the reddest offspring, that should be 

 possible now as in the past. 



A start in the direction of creating a buff bird would seem to require 

 the eUmination of the black. By crossing a black and red Game with a 

 White Leghorn I got, in 1905, 2 white pullets with red on breast and some 

 black specks. By crossing a Game Bantam (wingless) with a White Leg- 

 horn I got white birds with red present on wing-bar of male and breast of 

 females and also some black spots. 



In 1906 I mated 2 of these white (+ red) bantam hybrid hens with a 

 hybrid cock and obtained again red on the wing-coverts of some white 

 hybrids, while some were without red. From one of the hens I got 4 offspring, 

 or 20 per cent of all, with buff on hackle-lacing, breast, and wing-coverts. 



