66 POULTRY BREEDING AND MANAGEMENT 



for breeding to evolve backward. It sometimes happens 

 that the offspring shows characteristics that have not been 

 known to appear for centuries in the history of the breed. 

 Reversion works for desirable as well as undesirable traits. 



The causes which produce reversion are not always ap- 

 parent, but factors such as a change in food or climate are 

 known to cause reversion. Characteristics that have ap- 

 parently been lost, but are not lost, only latent, may reap- 

 pear when the system of breeding is changed. 



The reader is referred to page six for reference to Dar- 

 win's experiments on reversion, wherein Darwin claimed 

 that he secured a fowl that reverted to the pattern of the 

 jungle fowl, showing characteristics that had been latent for 

 possibly two thousand years. The experiment was repeated 

 by Dr. Davenport of the Carnegie Institution with similar 

 results. 



The point* has not yet been reached that the origin of any 

 particular breed or variety may in this way be demonstrated 

 with certainty, but it is possible by crossing a Plymouth 

 Rock, for example, with some other breed, and then recross- 

 ing the offspring to discover strong circumstantial evidence 

 as to what breeds were used in producing the Plymouth 

 Rock. 



At the Oregon Station a White Wyandotte and a Black 

 Minorca were mated. The offspring were white. Mating the 

 white offspring together chicks were secured that were strip- 

 ed in the down on the back. Neither the Minorcas nor the 

 Wyandotte chicks show stripes in the down. This was evi- 

 dently a reversion to some remote ancestor, possibly to some 

 of the breeds that were used in the" making up of the Wyan- 

 dottes. It is known that the young of all wild fowls of the 

 Gallinaceous species are hatched with stripes in the down 

 of back, and it is possible that by the proper crossing this 

 characteristic, though latent possibly for a thousand years, 



