162 THE AMERICAN BREEDS OF POULTRY 



bird during its molting period. "We learned that in our turkeys," 

 remarked Charles Bird, "if one gets droopy, it is very apt to molt in 

 some white feathers." 



Comb and shanks are not highly important with these breeders. 

 If shanks are a little dusky, they let it go. Their males have made a 

 reputation for bright color. It has not been due to tolerating or 

 employing white in the under color for these breeders find that in 

 their strain the birds that show cotton underneath are usually dark 

 surface colored specimens. 



They use big, long females to breed cockerels. These matrons are 

 also chosen for heavy, coarse markings and striped hackles. A bright 

 male, showing red in breast, can be used with such hens, and the 

 cockerels so bred will inherit clearness and brightness of ground 

 color from their sire, and soundly striped necks and backs from their 

 dam. Females to produce good cockerels should be striped in the 

 neck, and the ground color of neck should be orange red, neither 

 lemon nor edged with black smut. 



If a breeder cannot afford to get the best, these breeders state that 

 light pullets may be mated to a dark male, and if the birds carry 

 good breeding in their blood, this will prove a cheap mating that will 

 produce a few good ones. 



They have found it a little harder to get sound black striping on a 

 bright colored male than on a dark one, but they do not want a dark 

 chestnut red in their males, nor will they tolerate a black shawl around 

 the lower hackle of the male. They find that breeding a bright male 

 to strongly marked and pigmented hens as above described, produces 

 superior cockerels that molt into splendid cocks. 



Beauty and utility combined. The Partridge is one of the most 

 beautiful and useful varieties of the Plymouth Rock breed. The race 

 is abundantly furnished with plumage, and anyone who has experi- 

 enced slow feathering in his Barred Rocks should see a flock of big- 

 boned Partridges growing, and note in particular their tails coming 

 out with an abundance of coverts and lesser sickles, greenish black 

 in color and ribbon-like in effect. 



The plumage of the male is handsome indeed; greenish black in 

 breast, body and tail, with this rich, glossy black color placed in con- 

 trast and made conspicuous by comparison with a red neck and back; 

 while through the long, flowing, richly colored neck and back feathers 

 there runs a greenish black stripe. The females are red, each feather 

 of all the body except the neck, being magnificently marked with 

 crescentic pencilings of black. The neck may be penciled in the 

 lower feathers, balance of the hackle striped with black. Birds of 

 this breed are plump at all ages, the carcasses are well rounded and 

 the skin of no fowl is more deeply pigmented, making a golden yellow 

 carcass when the fowl is dressed. 



All black and red varieties are at a decided disadvantage for the 

 reason that it is with the greatest difficulty that they can be properly 



