WHITE WYANDOTTES MATING AND JUDGING. 69 



such varieties except at the expense of health and close confine- 

 ment under shade. If these obstacles did not exist, there would be 

 no incentive to the exercise of skill, and white varieties would always 

 be the winning birds. What is usually pronounced white, may be 

 severely cut for the absence of the shade of white which judges 

 deem pure. Mr. Felch says: " In all living shades of white, oil and 

 white-lead paint is a good standard, cutting for shading as white 

 till it becomes yellow, when the plumage becomes foreign to the 

 breed. The exception to this is when plumage becomes burned by 

 the sun and weather. This can be determined by lifting the plum- 

 age and seeing what it is where it has not been exposed, and to see 

 if the quills are yellow also. If the quill be yellow where not 

 exposed, we must consider that the sun is not the whole cause of 

 the foreign color." This is a very practical illustration and one 

 that can be easily kept in mind. White fowls should have plenty of 

 shade trees on their runs, as exposure to a blistering sun and neglect 

 of selection in the breeding pens, would eventually change the plum- 

 age from pure white to cream color, light buff, yellow or straw color; 

 and we would be safe in saying that they would in time revert to 

 the pristine color of the ancestors. 



MATING AND JUDGING. 



As there is only one color to select from in a flock of White 

 Wyandottes, after fine shape, vigorous constitution, sound limbs and 

 standard head and appendages, one must look to the purity of the 

 white and its richness in gloss as an indication of rich blood and 

 sound health. A pale white, like the lily, without sun and light, 

 should be avoided. The male having a richer, deeper or stronger 

 tinge to his plumage, though it be white, black or buff, will transmit 

 the purity or impurity of his color, as a rule, in a greater degree 

 than the female with which he is mated; so it behooves the breeder 

 to look sharply at color and not mate anything but white, both in 

 web and shaft. If this cannot be obtained in the females, too, and 

 they show yellowish tinge and yellow quills, the male must be white. 

 It will not be proper mating to put together males and females with 

 yellow on surface or quill, bad as it is to be obliged to use one or 

 the other with a mate whose plumage is white to counteract the 

 yellow; but when males and females are faulty in color, it is out of 

 the question to expect pure white plumage in the offspring. The 

 female progeny, from an opposite mating, coming all white, may be 



