I have about seventy-five male birds that are crossed with 

 either the Prince of Wales or Mongolian; birds secured from vari- 

 ous breeders in Oregon. These same birds last year showed great 

 signs of degeneration. Many of them were hatched with crippled 

 legs and deformed in other ways. In many cases they were ex- 

 tremely weak. Since I have crossed with the Prince of Wales, us- 

 ing the male of that species and the Chinese hen, we have experi- 

 enced less of this trouble. It could probably be eradicated by 

 bringing in new stock from the Orient, but owing to the pressure 

 of business, and further because I had a number of Prince of Wales 

 cocks on hand, I made the experiment and I find that the birds 

 resulting are a great deal hardier. This applies to the Mongolian 

 cross as well. I had no particular object in doing this further than 

 to add strength to the birds that we were turning out. 



I have placed an order w'ith a firm in Yokohama for a number 

 of thoroughbred Chinese male birds and should I be successful in 

 landing them, I will cross them with some of the females that I 

 now have. 



You probably know that of the Chinese birds first brought to 

 the Pacific Coast by Judge O. N. Denny, the majority were liber- 

 ated in Oregon. Some, however, were placed on Protection Island, 

 in Puget Sound. No further consideration was given these birds 

 till some years later when a few sportsmen began shooting them. 

 There followed their propagation in captivity in Oregon and after 

 a time the bird became known in Washington and several people 

 in this state began to raise it. Some of our stock was imported 

 from Oregon, presumably descendants of the original birds im- 

 ported by Judge Denny, and some has been brought in from other 

 parts of the United States. Also, a great many birds appear to 

 have been imported from the Orient. Whether they were pure 

 Chinese stock I cannot say, but in summing it all up, it appears to 

 me that 99 out of every 100 birds in western United States orig- 

 inated from the birds imported by Judge Denny. 



Some time ago I saw birds on board the S. S. Minnesota w^hich 

 were bought from Laffan & Co., Yokohama. The plumage was 

 somewhat disfigured on account of being in cold storage, but the 

 bird was a great deal heavier than ours. I also noticed that the 

 breast was more compact than that of our birds. 



Mr. Rief's reference to the Mongolian as a smaller bird than the 

 Chinese is puzzling, as he is commonly recognized as being much larger 

 than either the Chinese or the ringneck. 



