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Trio of Buff Legfiorn Winners. 



Buff Color Breeding Problems 



Looking to Nature for Instruction in Breeding Buff Plumage. Too Much Importance Attached to Undercolor. 



E2:ra Cornell 



MY EXPERIENCE with Bufif Leghorns has been 

 entirely different. I came into possession of 

 my first Buffs more by the result of Circum- 

 stances than through any real desire at the time to breed 

 them. They were an inferior lot of birds, but I kept them 

 and gradually became interested in the breed. I bred and 

 exhibited them five years before I was able to win a single 

 first prize with them at New York. It probably cost me 

 more to improve these birds than it would to have started 

 as I did with the Whites, but on the other hand I un- 

 doubtedly got a good deal of experience in breeding them 

 that I would not otherwise have gotten, so it is a ques- 

 tion, after all, which of the two ways of starting is, in the 

 long run, the cheaper and better for a beginner. 



What I have written on Whites relates equally well 

 to Buffs, excepting of course the refernce to color of 

 plumage. First let us see what the standard requires for 

 the female plumage. "Surface color throughout one even 

 shade of rich golden buff, f:ee from shafting or mealy ap- 

 pearance, the head and neck plumage showing a metallic 

 lustre of the same shade as the rest of the plumage; 

 undercolor a lighter shade as free as possible from all 

 foreign color. Other things being equal, the specimen 

 showing richest undercolor shall receive the preference." 

 The best buff color to be found today is on the Buff 

 Leghorn females. No other breed of Buffs is so absolutely 

 free from all foreign color or possesses a more even shade 

 of buff. The Buff Leghorns have more of a metallic 

 lustre than the other Buffs, which gives them a slightly 

 different appearance, but it is due to their having harder, 

 closer fitting feathers. Many breeders have been much 

 retarded in getting a fine plumage by laying altogether 



too much importance on undercolor. They would have 

 been, in many cases, far better if they had never consid- 

 ered undercoloi at all. A bird with a smoky or foreign 

 undercolor should be discarded, but aside from this it is 

 hardly worth considering. The best Buff Leghorn fe- 

 males I have ever seen, both for exhibition and breeding, 

 have had the lightest undercolor. The Standard says, 

 "Other things being equal, the specimen showing the 

 richest undercolor shall receive the preference." (The 

 word "richest" is usually translated in this case to mean 

 darkest). This may be all right, but be absolutely sure 

 that other things are equal before giving a deep under- 

 color any preference or consideration. 



Leghorns have comparatively hard, close fitting 

 feathers. In such feathers the coloring matter always con- 

 centrates in the surface or harder part of the feather; this 

 is according to nature and you cannot change it. Look 

 at some of our most highly colored wild birds — the 

 Scarlet Tanager, the Oriole, or even the Canary, and you 

 will find an undercolor which appears white in compari- 

 son to the surface. Take these same brilliant feathers 

 and lay them in the sunlight over a darker undercolor and 

 you will deaden the color. The rays of light pass through 

 the surface plumage, and on striking the light undercolor 

 are reflected, much intensified, which gives the plumage 

 its extreme brilliancy; whereas if the rays of light on 

 penetrating the surface were to strike a dark undercolor, 

 they would be absorbed and the surface color deadened. 

 There are three ways of deepening undercolor, all of which 

 are undesirable in the case under discussion. First, by 

 deepening the surface color, which is merely overloading 

 the plumage with coloring matter; second, by loosening 



