222 INHERITANCE, FERTILITY, AND SEX IN PIGEONS. 



difference from the preceding result is that the females, and the females only, are 

 very much lighter in color (they are nearly white) than the females of the Japanese x 

 blond ring cross ; while the males from the alba x orientalis cross are probably fully 

 as dark as risoria x orientalis offspring. One of these nearly white female hybrids 

 is shown in pi. 9; the color is very much reduced from the mother toward the 

 white father. But some pigment is certainly to be found, and even this bird is, 

 therefore, to some extent an intermediate. (The situation here is similar to that 

 found in the "white" females of the alba x hiimilis cross soon to be described. 

 A reference to the additional illustrations which are used in connection with Chapter 

 VII will show — see pis. 10 and 11 — that in both sexes, from the Japanese x white 

 ring cross and its reciprocal, size, general coloration, and neck-mark all present 

 themselves as intermediates, though some characters are more clearly so than others. 

 — Editor.) 



From the cross of the blond ring-dove''' with the European turtle-dove (shown 

 in pi. 2) we get a hybrid that is again an intermediate of the two parents, certainly 

 so in regard to the reduction of the spots on the wing and to the modification of the 

 neck-mark. These points in the hybrid are clearly reproduced in color in pi. 37. 

 (The neck-mark of the adult male hybrid is shown in text-fig. 11. These may 

 be compared with the conditions normal for T. turtur, as shown more completely in 

 pis. 2 and 36.) Then if I take this hybrid and cross it again with the blond ring, 

 I get the wing-marks ])ractically washed out; still enough remains of the distinc- 

 tive dark color, however, to remind of the European turtle, and the neck-spots 

 are once more reduced in the direction of the ring-dove. Two of these adult 

 hybrids — f ring-dove {\ alba-^ risoria) and |- European turtle-dove — are here repro- 

 duced in color, the lighter male in j)l. 37, the darker female in pi. 38 (the juvenal 

 neck-mark also in color in pi. 38; in addition, the flat neck-marks of an adult 

 male and female are shown in pi. 39; and the juvenal neck-mark in position and 

 flat also in pi. 39). These hybrids, represented in color, should be compared with 

 their half-sister''' of pi. 38, whose mother was white ring instead of blond ring. 

 Here it will be seen that the whiter dove reduced more strongly than did the brown- 

 ish one the already once-divided body-color and neck-mark of the European turtle- 

 dove. Carry the study still further by crossing the second hybrid (f ring x \ Euro- 

 pean turtle) with a ring-dove and we shall get nearer the ring-dove color and nearer 

 the ring-dove size; the mark on the neck becomes quite small and of the ring-dove 

 width, while the two side-spots are now found to touch each other on the back of 

 the neck.'^ 



Now, it would hardly be fair for me to stop here with my account, since in some 

 crosses one can, apparently, obtain quite another result. When the male white ring 

 is crossed with the female red ring {St. humilis) one gets sometimes a dark bird and 

 sometimes a white one. In that cross I have obtained about as many ^^ hite as 

 dark. I have not carried this experiment far enough to know just what the results 

 would be, but all the white young are females and most of the dark birds are 

 males.'" One might say the white birds are like the father, while the dark birds 



"knalba-risorUixrisoria-albahyhridoihXonil color was the parent of tlie bird illustrated in pi. 37. — Editor. 

 " The brothers and sisters of this family show considerable variation, a fact made evident by reference to 

 table 121. Several are not as light as the one illustrated. — Editor. 

 " No drawings of this final hybrid can be found. — Editor. 

 '« See Chapter XII.— Editor. 



