16 POULTRY BREEDING AND MANAGEMENT 



Effect of Food and Climate on Size and Meat Quali- 

 ties. An abundant supply of food, changed soil, climate, 

 and other conditions relating to environment, would not 

 only increase production of eggs, but would tend to pro- 

 duce variations in the size and meat qualities. Abnormal 

 characteristics, sports or mutations, would frequently result. 

 Ancient peoples (poultry-keepers in other centuries) had 

 no interest in standards of uniformity, and they would 

 preserve the peculiar or abnormal birds, and new types 

 would be evolved. A sport might be produced weighing two 

 or three times more than the common fowl, and it is easily 

 understood that a fowl of that size would be carefully pre- 

 served. The variations would extend to egg-laying. The 

 poultry-keeper would find a fowl that was evidently a good 

 layer ; she would be retained and her eggs would be hatched. 

 This kind of selection, unconscious selection, works by cen- 

 turies slowly but surely. 



The ancients were not influenced by prizes and high 

 prices, but more by novelties, and it is easy to believe that 

 the fowl of unusual or abnormal appearance was carefully 

 preserved. So, too, it is reasonable to believe that a few 

 out of many must have paid attention to productive qual- 

 ities, and in some way if not by trapnests, by some other 

 method picked out the best layers and bred from them. 

 There is no record, so far as known, that fowls were kept to 

 please the fancy and win prizes for fancy points, and if they 

 were kept mainly or wholly for their economic qualities, 

 selection must have been based on the idea of improving 

 productive qualities. Whether we owe most to the Mutant 

 "the occasional appearance of abnormal characters " or 

 to the slow process of unconscious selection the survival 

 of the fittest is a matter of speculation rather than fact. 



Use and Disuse of Parts. The use and disuse of parts 

 has been a factor in the evolution of the fowl. How so? 



