294 AMERICAN POULTRY ASSOCIATION 



CHAPTER III. 



MATING PARTRIDGE PLYMOUTH ROCKS 



The widely divergent shades found on the male and female of 

 this variety, to which attention has already been called, together 

 with the complicated and intricate system of markings of the 

 female plumage makes the Partridge Plymouth Rock one of the 

 most difficult varieties in the Standard to breed to an approxi- 

 mate degree of perfection. Therefore, experience and skill in 

 selecting and mating on the part of the breeder are assets of 

 considerable value. 



The Partridge variety of any and all breeds furnishes one 

 of the most pronounced examples of the necessity of double- 

 mating, according to the principles of mating as related in Part 

 II, that a special mating for each sex is necessary when the 

 sexes have different color patterns. In neither color nor in mark- 

 ings are the Partridge sexes alike. If one is not familiar with 

 the Partridge markings, it is inconceivable that males with solid 

 colored feathers in breast, shoulders, wing and tail coverts will 

 breed females, the feathers of which sections are of two widely 

 contrasting colors, and furthermore, diverge so widely from a 

 solid colored web as to show three distinct crescentic pencilings. 

 Yet, a knowledge of the difference in color and color patterns of 

 male and female in Partridge varieties was handed down to us 

 with our first information about Asiatic fowls. 



Single Matings. Many of the breeders today practice, or 

 claim to practice, single mating. The requirements of the latest 

 (1915) Standard are much more favorable to this method than 

 were the Standards before. First, because penciled necks are 

 permitted on the females. It has always been difficult to breed 

 penciling in all soft and semi-soft feathers, except those of the 

 neck and exclude it from those. By accepting necks that are 

 slightly penciled, we receive more and better pencilings in all 

 other sections. Second, because the males that are the sons of 

 the best penciled females have also been prone to show brown 

 edging in the soft fluff feathers, which the present standard 

 allows, and very often, also, in the breast, we have a beginning 

 toward the acceptance of the son of the best penciled female as 

 the ideal male. But this son of the female goes further and has 

 more or less brown in the rear-body feathers, and sometimes in 

 breast, and the striping in hackle and saddle is sometimes broken 



