SILVER LACED WYANDOTTES 185 



of the extreme open lacing of the Sebright he will lose soundness 

 of color in wings and tails. A balance must therefore be found, and 

 an extreme reached in neither direction, for sound wings and tails 

 are of no value without lacing; and according to our Standard, the 

 most pronounced Sebright lacing does not make a perfect bird if it 

 fails in wing and tail. 



Mossiness in the tail coverts is an old fault inherited from the 

 penciled Brahma. Frostiness, that is, a marginal tracing of white 

 outside the black lacing, is another fault all breeders should seek to 

 eliminate. Brass or straw color on the back and wing bows of the 

 males is also a defect which more commonly shows in the late summer 

 and fall, just before the molt. Males, not females, show brass. 



Proper matings. Tt is desirable to breed from hens that have 

 molted sound. Sometimes an open-laced pullet will molt in mossy 

 feathers on her back. Sound hens are doubly valuable. Take an 

 oval center instead of a pointed one every time. If the back of the 

 female is open laced, but the centers run out a little on the breast, 

 the edging on the breast not being quite sound, you have reasonably 

 good material to work with. Now find a male that is fairly well 

 <triped with black in the back, and in the center of whose stripes 

 are open, diamond shaped, silvery white centers. Have him laced 

 ns well on the wing bar as possible. Have his breast soundly edged 

 with black. The breast lacing should not splash out in the lower 

 breast. If the lacing on the breast fails at all. let it be in medium 

 sized centers. Such a mating will produce a high-class lot of 

 cockerels and pullets. 



AYhenever possible, breed birds that have a large feather. The 

 larger the feather, the larger the lacing. Lacing is the beauty of 

 the variety. It is hard to get too much lacing, provided you retain 

 a solid black edging on the feather not a weak or brown-black 

 lacing. Do not mate two light under-colored birds together. You 

 must have a measure of slate under-color to feed the black in the 

 plumage and produce sound edging, sound wings and tail. 



If the females have small centers and rather heavy black edging, 

 a good mating is made by securing a male with large breast feathers 

 which are openly laced, even though the lacing runs out a little in 

 the lower breast as a result of the white being somewhat too excessive 

 to be held within black bands. Such a male may be a little light in 

 under-color of hackle and saddle. If you insist on dark under-color 

 in both sexes, you will be forced into double mating, for nature does 

 not readily produce the open lacing of a Sebright with the under- 

 color of a Dark Brahma. 



