Tlie Ucldence from Sexual Characters. 2^3 



the feailiers of the hen, he retains all his courage and 

 high s])irit. 



Ill a feu" cases the females of allied breeds dificr more 

 thin the males, and Darwin refers to two strains of 

 black-breasted red games, in which the cocks were so 

 much alike that they could not be distinguished, while 

 the hens were partridge-brown in the one case and fawn- 

 brown in the other. The pencilling which is character- 

 istic of the Hamburg hen is almost absent in the male, 

 but as a rule the various breeds of fowls are distinguished 

 by peculiarities of organs^wliicli are almost or entirely 

 confined to the males. 



Of the comb Darwin says that it differs much in the 

 various breeds, and its form is eminentlv characteristic 

 of each kind with the exception of the Dorkings. A 

 single deej^ly serrated comb is the t3'pical and most 

 common form. It diSers much in size, being immense- 

 ly develcjDcd in Spanish fowls; and in a local breed called 

 licdcnps, it is sometimes u^iwards of three inches in 

 breadth at the front, and more than four inches in length, 

 measured to the end of the peak behind. In some breeds 

 the comb is double, and wl.en the two ends are cemented 

 together it forms a ^^caj^comb;" in the *'rose comb" 

 it is depressed, covered with small projections, and pro- 

 duced backwards; in the horned and Creve-Coeur fowl it 

 is produced into two horns; it is triple in the pea-combed 

 Brahmas, short and truncated in the Malays, and absent 

 in the Guelderlands. In the tasselled game a few long 

 feathers arise from the back of the comb, and in many 

 breeds a crest of feathers replaces the comb. The crest, 

 when little developed, arises from a fleshy mass, but 

 when much developed, form a hemispherical protuber- 

 ance of the skull. In the best Polish fowls it is so 

 largely developed that the birds can hardly pick up their 



