ANIMAL PRODUCTION. 173 



prizes for exhibition pens, have resorted to so-called double mating, breeding 

 males from dark strains and females from light strains, since judges give 

 preference to jjeus in which the males and females are matched in shading. 



It is further shown that whereas yellow pigment in the beak and the legs of 

 Leghorn and Wyandotte pullets disappears when they begin to lay and i-eturns 

 again when they cease laying (see abstract above), the Standard of Perfection 

 demands yellow in the beak and legs, thus penalizing production. It is sug- 

 gested that the show-room standards be changed and greater account taken of 

 yield; that judges disqualify for characters indicating low yield; that efforts 

 be made to discover to what extent visible characters are correlated with high 

 production ; and that points be allowed commensurate with the degree of this 

 correlation. 



Method of selecting the high-producing hens, O. B. Kent {Cornell Coun- 

 tryman, 12 {1915), No. 6, pp. 481-484, fig. i).— The author states that the 

 characters to be used in a study of egg production are time of molting, color 

 of shank, texture of comb, and color of ear lobes. Late molting is the accom- 

 paniment of late laying, but late molting does not appear to affect the earliness 

 of spring laying; those hens that molted late molted much more rapidly than 

 those that molted early and hence lost less time. It has been found at the New 

 York Cornell Experiment Station that all of the high producers and some of 

 the low vitality low producers have pale shanks, but that any bird with yellow 

 shanks after a year of laying, whether it be the first, second, or third year of 

 egg production, has been a poor producer for that year. If a bird starts with 

 pale shanks, the shanks will not grow darker, and nothing can be told of the 

 egg production from the shanks alone. 



It was further found that those birds which had soft pliable combs in the 

 fall were in general better producers than those with hard or dried-up combs. 

 It was found that there was a very close correlation between a combination 

 of the three factors (time of molting, color of shank, and texture of comb) 

 and egg production. 



Studies at the Connecticut Storrs Station (see above) tend to show that 

 those birds that normally have a considerable amount of yellow pigment in 

 their ear lobes before they begin to lay will lay this yellow color out. By means 

 of the ear lobes it is a comparatively easy matter to go through a flock of 

 utility White Leghorn pullets eight months after they are hatched and pick 

 out those that have not laid. The ear-lobe test simply indicates whether the 

 bird is laying or not and does not necessarily indicate that a bird will or will 

 not lay heavily throughout the year. 



California poultry practice, Susan Swaysgood {San Francisco: Pacific 

 Rural Press, 1915, pp. 157, pis. 8, figs. 5). — A general treatise on poultry 

 management. 



A poultry survey of Jackson County, F. S. Jacoby ( West Virginia Sta. Bui. 

 148 {1914), PP- S-38, pi. 1, figs. 13). — This is a general r§sum6 of the poultry 

 industry in Jackson County, W. Va., said to be the greatest poultry-producing 

 county in that State. Methods of breeding, feeding, marketing, and general 

 management are described. 



Profitable squab breeding, O. Dare {Des Moines: Author, 1914, PP- 70, pis. 

 4, figs. 18). — This booklet contains general information on squab breeding and 

 management. 



Breeding for horns, F. N. Meyes {Jour. HereMty, 6 {1915), No. 2, p. 96). — 

 This is an account of an industry in Siberia in which stags are bred for their 

 antlers. The antlers are sawed off, boiled in salt water several times, and 

 allowed to diy, in which state they are sold. The average price paid for the 

 antlers is between ?4 and $6 ner pound. 



