AN EXPERIMENT DEALING WITH SEX-LINKAGE 
IN FOWLS 
A. H. STURTEVANT 
From the Zoological Laboratory, Columbia University 
FOUR FIGURES 
In 1911 I published a preliminary report (Sturtevant, 711) of 
an experiment showing sex-linked inheritance in fowls. The 
more significant data for the second generation can now be given. 
z DESCRIPTION OF PARENT BREEDS 
The two breeds used in this experiment were the Columbian 
Wyandotte and the Brown Leghorn. The Columbian Wyan- 
dotte (fig. 1) is chiefly white, but with the tail, primaries, upper 
web of secondaries, median stripe to neck feathers, and some 
tail coverts black, in both sexes. 
The Brown Leghorn is nearly the color of the wild Gallus 
bankiva.t The sexes are strongly dimorphic. The males have 
reddish yellow edging to the neck and back feathers, some red 
on the shoulders and wing coverts, and a rather yellowish brown 
lower web to the secondaries (wing-bay of the fanciers), the 
rest of the plumage being typically black. The female has the 
tail, primaries, upper web to secondaries, and stripe in neck 
feathers black. Her breast is salmon yellow, and the neck feath- 
ers are edged with yellow. The rest of the plumage is finely 
stippled or mossed with yellowish brown and black. 
1A very good illustration showing male and female of this color is given by Bate- 
son (’09, pl. 4, figs. 3-4, opp. p. 103). 
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