40 BREEDING 



by the union of a black and a white. Mr. Sturges, 

 indeed, seems to incline to the view that the Anda- 

 lusian actually arose from such a cross. There is no 

 doubt that the Andalusian is a very near relation of 

 the Black Spanish, and that both of them came from 

 Spain about the middle of the nineteenth century. 

 In 1846 a Mr. Barber imported black and also white 

 fowls from Spain ; and Mr. Sturges suggests (" Poultry 

 Manual," p. 437) that " these may have been the 

 foundation of the Andalusian. This," he continues, 

 " is borne out by a further note : Another gentleman 

 says : ' I have a few chickens out from Mr. Barber's 

 Andalusian hens (called Andalusian because they 

 came from thence), some of which seem to be the 

 true old Black Spanish, and some a grizzly white . . . 

 some of these are of a blue or grey or slaty colour.' " 

 Here we catch a glimpse of the Mendelian phenomenon 

 being unfolded before the eyes of a man who cannot 

 have apprehended its significance, and before Mendel 

 had begun his experiments. Such glimpses are com- 

 forting to those who, like myself, have a horror that 

 this kind of orderliness in natural processes is not 

 seen or, at any rate, not so easily seen until we have 

 been led by some portent, like Mendel's discovery, 

 to expect to see it. 



HUMAN EYE COLOUR 



In the case of the Andalusian fowl we considered 

 an instance of the Mendelian phenomenon in which 

 the hybrid bears a character peculiar to itself — the 

 blue colour we have described. 



