216 BREEDING. 



not a change that in all cases will produce short legs, as an 

 occasional fowl will appear with long legs, like the original 

 progenitors. The same in regard to any other feature in fowls. 

 Indeed, it is asserted by one of my correspondents, in this work, 

 as the reader may have noticed, that he professes to be able to 

 change a black breed of ducks, without a white feather in them, 

 to a pure -white breed, in process of time, and vice versa. He 

 assumes to be able to accomplish this singular result by select- 

 ing such as shall have an occasional white feather appear, for 

 breeders, and then by selecting from their progeny such as show 

 a few more white feathers, and so on to the end. It would 

 require many years to accomplish this, but it can probably be 

 done, if the originals are tinctured in the most minute degree 

 with the blood of white ducks, so as to cause them to throw 

 out an occasional white feather, but not otherwise. If, by accident 

 or design, the most minute strain of impure blood gets into 

 the veins of a single fowl in the yard, and that fowl is allowed 

 to remain with the stock, such impurity will tincture the entire 

 flock in time, and though not visible to the breeder, yet in 

 subsequent years he will be surprised to see an occasional fowl 

 of a color that does not legitimately belong to the breed, which 

 is in consequence of the contamination of his stock years before, 

 perhaps. This is technically called " crying lack" and it is a 

 principle that is true of man, as well as animals. 



Some time during the eighteenth century, an English gen- 

 tleman settled in the East Indies and married a native woman 

 of unusual light complexion, by whom he had a son who could 

 not be distinguished in features from the people of Great 

 Britain. The wife died, and the father 'and son came to Eng- 

 land to reside, where the latter married a lady of the nobility, 

 and now, at this date, after several generations have passed 

 away, an occasional mulatto turns up in the descendants of the 

 son's family, to the horror of his or her relatives ! Thus we 

 see how obstinately and tenaciously a little impure blood adheres 

 to each successive generation of all animate nature, and it 

 behooves the breeder of all kinds of stock to beware how he 

 allows any contamination of blood to tincture his animals or 

 fowls, unless he desires to cross them. 



"BREEDING TO A FEATHER." This term applies to such fowls 

 as always show the same distinctive colors, without any par- 

 ticular variation. The white and the speckled Dorkings, Guel- 

 derlands, Black Spanish, Black Polands, White Shanghaes, 



