Bulletin of the Scientific Laboratories of Denison University. 

 II. Article IV. With Plate \ I. October, igo2 



A DEFORMED CHICK. 



By Lyndon M. Hill. 



John M. Sontag has said that chicks hatched under a hen 

 are never deformed. Last fall I received a chick, which had 

 been hatched out of barred Plymouth rock eggs, by a barred 

 Plymouth hen. 



This chick was deformed and the deformity was pronounced 

 enough to attract attention. At birth the chick was as vigor- 

 ous as any in the brood; but the deformity was a handicap to 

 the chick and in a few days the struggle with the other normal 

 chicks ended in death b)- starvation. 



To the casual observer one of the chick's legs was much 

 shorter than the other; to the naturalist the leg was not only 

 shorter than usual, but it contained only three toes and two of 

 those were webbed from the proximal end to the nails. It was 

 this peculiar modification which led me to think the chick was 

 worth a careful study. 



In the following tables an attempt is made to contrast the 

 normal and abnormal legs; not only as to external morphology 

 but also as to their skeletons. 



