SEXUAL CHARACTERS OF SOME DOMESTIC BIRDS. 



Chick plumage. Sexes indistinguishable by color alone. Plumage as before, except that 

 the remiges and rectrices develop precociously, together with a few feathers along the sides 

 of the breast and belly. A few other spots also develop feathers precociously. The breast 

 feathers are buff or brown; the rectrices and remiges buff and brown mingled irregularly. 

 This plumage is perhaps a phase of the down plumage due to the precocious development of 

 the main wing and tail feathers. 



Juvenile plumage. Sexes readily distinguishable. Female: buff breast, dull- black pri- 

 maries, brown and black secondaries and tail feathers. Hackle laced with yellow, the center 

 black and yellow mixed; remainder of the plumage brownish and dull black, closely inter- 

 mingled as stippling. Male : Dorsal feathers short, but may be pointed at end in late stages ; 

 breast red and black or buff and black; rectrices black, primaries black, secondaries red and 

 black; remainder of plumage red and black with some indications of the adult body-pattern. 



Adult. Sexes very different. The female similar in color to the female in juvenile plu- 

 mage, except that as a rule the stippling is much finer (plate vi, k). The male has several 

 well-marked body areas, viz, glossy black breast and belly, black wing front and bar (first 

 and second row of secondary coverts). Feathers of the rest of wing and middle of back red 

 with black centers, short but pointed. Saddle feathers long and pointed (plate vi, I), with 

 black centers (sometimes absent in lateral feathers), and red or orange margins; tail coverts 

 glossy black, long and curved, rectrices black. Hackles long and pointed, similar in color to 

 saddle feathers. The red feathers of the back and wing and the saddle hangers are char- 

 acterized by having a part of each barb modified into a bristle. 



JUVENILE CHARACTERS. 



The characters of the young are often spoken of as identical with those 

 of the female. In many instances this is true, particularly for those 

 characters of the adult male which are absent in the adult female, yet 

 other characters appear only in the young, while a third set appears 

 only in the young male; the last are sometimes specific, sometimes like 

 those of the adult male. In the Leghorns there is no stage in which the 

 young male, as a whole, is like an adult female, though he may be 

 more like his mother than like his father in that both are brown. In 

 the down, also, he is brownish (as well as his sister), but in an entirely 

 different way from the adult female. The young drake in juvenile 

 plumage on the whole resembles his mother far more than his father, 

 just as the latter in the state of eclipse comes to resemble his mate. In 

 the down his plumage, like the Leghorn's, is identical with that of his 

 sister and neither are at all like their mother or father. On the whole 

 very few juvenile characters in the young male are identical with those 

 of the female. Even the young female has many characters peculiar 

 to her age. In the young male Brown Leghorn the only character almost 

 identical with a female character is the brown stippling on the feathers 

 of the dorsal region in many individuals. His breast feathers are 

 always red and black, never entirely buff. His comb grows faster 

 than his sister's and is noticeably larger at a very early age, three weeks 

 or less in robust individuals. The young drake has head stripes like 

 his mother's, but this is about the only point on which there can be no 

 question of the resemblance. His ventral feathers, while dull black 

 with brown edging like his sister's, are not penciled like those of the adult 

 female. On the other hand, his mandible begins to change color at a 

 very early age. A few vermiculated feathers occur on parts of the body, 



