44 GONADECTOMY IN RELATION TO THE SECONDARY 



even when the lop is absent. If, however, a pullet with an erect comb of 

 similar size appears in a flock of Plymouth Rocks, she looks masculine. 

 However, the proportions of the comb are usually unlike those of a 

 male, and it also seems probable that if the bird had been a male the 

 comb would have been several times the size it actually attained. In 

 other words, such birds are simply large-combed but not masculine- 

 combed females. 



In Mediterranean breeds the comb of the male is erect, that of the 

 female lops. Females, however, frequently occur with erect combs, 

 which, however, are of female size and proportions. In some males 

 there is a tendency for the comb to lop, particularly when young, 

 though it never does so in quite the same fashion as it lops in the 

 female. While the comb of the female never lops after complete cas- 

 tration, the comb of the young capon lops sometimes, like that of the 

 young male. There is no reason, however, to believe that the lop of the 

 adult female and that of the young male are due to the same causes. 

 The lop observed in the comb of young males usually (but not always) 

 appears due to lack of stamina or to some envhonmental causes, such 

 as an injury. 



The exposed surface of the secondaries constitutes the wing bay. In 

 the female of those races where there is a sex differential coloration of 

 the body this area is stippled. In Brown Leghorns the stippling is light 

 brown on a dark-brown ground-color. In the male it is a solid 

 color — a uniform red in the Leghorns. While the stippled condition 

 may be transitory in the young male, it has not been observed in the 

 adult, either normal or castrated. In some cross-bred females belong- 

 ing to the writer, the wing bay of the females is a solid color and its 

 feathers would readily pass for a male's feathers from that region. A 

 condition of this region, intermediate between the male and the female, 

 often appears in Brown Leghorn females, and associated with it is a 

 condition known as "brick" by the fanciers. The brick is a reddish 

 color of the wing-bow region, exactly that region which in the male is 

 red. Its appearance strongly suggests a heterozygous condition, but 

 no breeding tests have been carried out. 



In ducks, so far as I know, the only male character that appears in 

 otherwise normal females is the neck ring, though it is reported that 

 normal females sometimes develop the curled tail feathers of the male. 

 In one instance the neck ring appeared when the duck (a Rouen with 

 typical female plumage) was less than a year old, but it is not known 

 whether the duck laid or not. In hybrid females there are several types 

 of neck rings, among them one like that of the male Rouen or Mallard. 

 On the other hand, some hybrid males show no trace of a neck ring. 

 One or two females of this race lacking neck-rings have been castrated 

 and they, too, have not developed any ring, though otherwise they 

 have been among the most perfectly male-plumaged individuals. 



