BIRDS, bOi 



The extreme importance, or rather necessity, in the 

 above case of the desired character, namely, pale-bhieness, 

 being present though in a latent state in the female, so that 

 the male offspring should not be deteriorated, will be best 

 appreciated as follows: the male of Soemmerring's pheasant 

 has a tale thirty-seven inches in length, while that of the 

 female is only eight inches; the tale of the male common 

 pheasant is about twenty inches, and that of the female 

 twelve inches long. Now if the female Scemmerring pheas- 

 ant with her sliort tail were crossed with the male common 

 pheasant there can be no doubt that the male hybrid off- 

 spring would have a much longer tail than that of the pure 

 offspring of the common pheasant. On the other hand, if 

 the female common pheasant, with a tail much longer than 

 that of the female Scemmerring pheasant, were crossed with 

 the male of the latter, the male hybrid offspring would 

 have a much sliorter tail than that of the pure offspring of 

 Soemmerring's pheasant. * 



Our fancier, in order to make his new breed with the 

 males of a pale-blue tint, and the females unchanged, 

 would have to continue selecting the males during many 

 generations; and each stage of paleness would have to be 

 fixed in the males, and rendered latent in the females. The 

 task would be an extremely difficult one, and has never 

 been tried, but might possibly be successfully carried out. 

 The chief obstacle would be the early and complete loss of 

 the pale-blue tint, from the necessity of reiterated crosses 

 Avith the slaty female, the latter not having at first any 

 latent tendency to produce pale-blue offspring. 



On the other hand, if one or two males were to vary ever 

 so slightly in paleness, and the variations were from the 

 first limited in their transmission to the male sex, the task 

 of making a new breed of the desired kind would be easy, 

 for such males would simply have to be selected and 

 matched with ordinary females. An analogous case has 

 actually occurred, for there are breeds of the pigeon in 

 Belgium \ in which the males alone are marked with black 



* Temminck says tliat the tail of the female Plumanus Scmimer- 

 ringii is only six inches long, " Planches coloriees," vol. v, 1838, pp. 

 487, 488; the measurements above given were made for me by Mr. 

 Sclater. For the common pheasant, see Macgillivray, "Hist. Brit. 

 Birds," vol. i, pp. 118-121. 



f Dr. Chapius, *' Le Pigeon Voyageur Beige," 1865, p. 87. 



