THE CALL OF THE HEN. 79 



to like females, but I was mistaken. And here is where I 

 discovered my second great secret. After this I mated like 

 to like more intellingently, and the results were more satis- 

 factory. 



I consider the selecting of the male birds for mating along 

 anatomical and physiological lines, together with the proper 

 understanding and use of the faculty that governs the repro- 

 ductive function, as the greatest discoveries ever made in the 

 poultry industry. 



The reader may think there is very little difference in the 

 skulls in Fig. 35. If you add an inch to the length of a man's 

 legs, it does not seem to make much difference in his height, 

 but if you add an inch to the end of his nose, it would make 

 a great difference in his looks. I found this expansion on the 

 back of the skull corresponded to the faculty of amativeness 

 in the human family. I found that when it was large in both 

 male and female the parents passessed the ability to transmit 

 their predominating characteristics to their offspring. If the 

 parents were fancy birds, their progeny would in some cases 

 excel their parents in feather, vigor, and other good qualities. 

 If the parents were of the egg type, some of the chicks would 

 be as good and some better layers and more vigorous than 

 the parents; if of the meat type, the progeny would be of 

 a stronger constitution, of a quicker growth, and assimilate 

 their food better in a word, if both parents have this fac- 

 ulty (called "prepotency" by some) large, the chicks will be 

 more likely to be equal to, and some will excel, their parents 

 along the lines in which the parents predominate. If the 

 parents have the faculty small, the chicks will not be so 

 good as the parent stock, but will degenerate along the lines 

 that the parents excel in. If a hen is a 200-egg type and she 

 has this faculty small, she will be just as valuable as an egg- 

 producer as if she had the faculty large, but she will be of no 

 value as a breeder; she will be an old maid from choice, and 

 her eggs will not be fertile, if she has the faculty small enough. 

 If the male bird has it small, his eggs will not hatch well, and 

 if small, they will not hatch at all. I have found a few cases 

 where the cock bird had the faculty of prepotency (ama- 

 tiveness) large and failed to fertilize the eggs, but the cases 

 were very rare, and I attribute it to weakened or diseased 



