PLYMOUTH KOCK S'7'.I .V/> I /'/> I A /> ItltVVI) HOOK 05 



They were not so much exposed to the ravages of hawks, and 

 farmers thought much of that. The hawk could not see them so 

 plainly, and the mother hen was almost as sharp of eye as her 

 enemy in the air. 



"Another point should not be overlooked, namely, the facility 

 which was manifested by this stock to assimilate the dash of 

 Asiatic blood so as to make it a genuine infusion. In other 

 words, the cross by Asiatics made 'a hit' upon the said old- 

 fashioned, hawk-colored birds, so that they reproduced them- 

 selves, throwing comparatively few reverts, and furnishing at 

 once the basis upon which to build a breed." 



That the natural course of events following the general dis- 

 appointment in the large Asiatic fowl was to throw them into the 

 scrap heap in the nature of the mongrel farm yard flock cannot 

 be questioned. There could be no other place found for them 

 unless it be the butcher's cart and all Asiatics would be no more 

 likely to be thus condemned than all mongrels. Many mongrels 

 survived, so did many Asiatics. 



It must be remembered that this was a time when fowls were 

 expected to shift for themselves and pick up a living. It was 

 before the days of henhouses and discussions as to glass fronts, 

 open sheds and southern exposures. A clump of trees, a cluster 

 of bushes, or some nook among a group of farm buildings was 

 all the shelter furnished. Under such conditions the ancestors 

 of Plymouth Rocks learned to thrive. It was a game in which 

 the survival of the fittest played the all-important part and won. 

 These conditions lasting for generation after generation, together 

 with the infusions of foreign blood that have been from time to 

 time introduced, account for the hardy character of this fowl. 



Through some process hawk-colored fowls came into exist- 

 ence. How, no one can definitely say, but it is more probable 

 that this was a process of reincarnation rather than one of mix- 

 ing two-color types of plumage, creating a third and entirely 

 different color type. This line of reasoning fits in well with the 

 theory of a foundation of Scotch-Grey blood which, as one 

 author, Mr. F. L. Sewell, puts it, "The Scotch-Grey fowls of 

 North Britain can perhaps throw some light on the origin of 

 the American Dominique. If this very old race of 'Cuckoo- 

 colored' chickens are not the ancestors of our early Dominiques, 

 we must confess that we have as yet failed to discover them. 

 They are the nearest to the type of our old Dominique of any 

 European race of fowl." 



