122 



The Journal of Heredity 



Professor O. B. Kent of Cornell 

 University states that according to 

 poultry papers "silky Black Langshans 

 were comparatively common in Eng- 

 land." It is of interest to mention in 

 this connection the very recent occur- 

 rence of such abnormally feathered 

 birds in a flock of Langshans in the 

 state of Missouri. The appearance of 

 these birds was communicated to the 

 American Poultry Journal, which, 

 knowing the writer's interest in this 

 subject, very courteously forwarded a 

 copy of its answer. The statement is 

 made that this is the first instance 

 which has come to the American Poul- 

 try Journal of silky feathered birds 

 appearing in this breed. Professor 

 Kent also mentions the occasional 

 occurrence of silkies in the flock of 

 Rhode Island Reds at the Cornell 

 Station. According to Professor Hal- 

 pin of the Wisconsin Experiment 

 Station the same breed at this station 

 has also produced a silky or two. 



Professor Kent further off'ers some 

 information regarding an attempt to 

 establish a breed of silkies called the 

 Onondagas. These were bred by a 

 poultry man in Syracuse, N. Y., from 

 silky feathered Rhode Island Red 

 females and a brown Leghorn male, 

 also with silky plumage. 



F'rom the foregoing it appears, then, 

 that silkiness occurs sporadically not 

 only in scrub flocks of poultry, but also 

 in the Cochin, Bantam Cochin, Rhode 

 Island Red, Black Orpington, White 

 Rock, White Wyandotte, Brown Leg- 

 horn, Gray Brahma and Black Lang- 

 shan breeds. 



LITERATURE ON THE INHERITANCE OF 

 THE PLUMAGE OF THE SILKY FOWL 



So far as the writer is aware, no 

 study has been made of the genetic 

 behavior of the plumage of sporadic 

 silkies, but several experiments have 

 been performed in crossing purebred 

 Silkies with normal-plumaged birds. 



According to Darwin (1868) the 

 "Silk-fowl" breeds true, but when 

 crossed on a bird with normal plumage 

 the latter dominates. He speaks of 



Mr. Orton's obtaining three silky 

 feathered birds "out of many reared" 

 from a male Silky and a female Ban- 

 tam. This would indicate that the 

 female Bantam was heterozygous for 

 silkiness. 



The dominance of normal plumage 

 over silky is further illustrated by 

 Tegetmeier (1873) who speaks of cross- 

 ing the latter with many breeds of 

 poultry, when, as a rule, normal 

 feathers result. He also states that a 

 pair of birds from a Silky hen and 

 Spanish cock produced one silky off'- 

 spring. 



Later work on such crosses has gi\'en 

 more definite results. Davenport 



(1906) crossed the Silky with the 

 Frizzle (the feathers of this breed being 

 normal in structure but recurved). 

 Silkiness proved to be recessive in the 

 Fi. No data were given for the second 

 generation but the statement is made 

 later (1907) that when plain and silky 

 feathered birds are crossed together all 

 the resulting offspring have normal 

 plumage and that 25% of the F.'s are 

 silky. 



The experiments performed by Bate- 

 son and Punnett (1908) furnish some 

 figures showing the simple Mendelian 

 behavior of the silky character. They 

 crossed a Silky with a normal-plumaged 

 fowl and obtained in the F. 77 normals 

 to 22 silkies, which is very close to the 

 expectation of 74 to 25. In a backcross 

 of an Fi with a Silky 25 normals and 

 28 silkies were obtained, 25.5 of each 

 being expected. Nothing is said regard- 

 ing the character of the Fi plumage but 

 it is to be presumed that it was normal. 



Further evidence, though very 

 meager, is given by Cunningham (1912) 

 on a cross of a normal-feathered Ban- 

 kiva male and a Silky female. The 

 number of resulting F/s is not stated, 

 but all are said to haAe had normal 

 plumage. The numbers obtained in 

 Fa were small, being 7 normal to 3 

 silky. 



Bonhotc (1914) crossed a Silky cock 

 with a Yokohama hen and obtained a 

 pair of normal-plumaged Fi offspring. 

 These bred together gave 24 birds, 18 



