THE CALL OF THE HEN. 99 



a month and be healthy and active, and in another month to 

 return back to her original six-finger capacity, but it is not so 

 with the male bird after he is mature. I have tested male 

 birds at nine months of age that scored four fingers abdomen, 

 1 /i6-inch pelvic bone, that did not change for four years, ex- 

 cept that, their pelvic bones being Vie of an inch thick at nine 

 months old, I have found them to be Vs of an inch thick at 

 eighteen months old. They had increased in thickness of 

 bone from Vie to Vs inch. These were egg- type male birds; 

 the meat-type will vary more or less in the thickness of the 

 pelvic bones depending on how much flesh they put on or 

 lose between the different times of examining them. 



It will be easy to distinguish the egg- type cock bird from 

 the meat-type bird ; the former has thin pelvic bones, whether 

 in flesh or not, while the latter has thick pelvic bones with a 

 more or less lump of gristle on the end of them, whether he is 

 thin or in good flesh. I have found that in classifying the male 

 bird as we have the hen as to type and capacity for a certain 

 egg-yield it requires less abdominal capacity in the male bird 

 than in the female. For instance, the male bird that is two 

 fingers abdomen and Vie of an inch pelvic bone is the same 

 type and capacity for breeding purposes as the three-finger- 

 abdomen hen, l /i 6 -inch pelvic one. The male of the same 

 class, as regards capacity, does not require as large an abdomen 

 as the female; this is so self-evident that it would be a waste 

 of time to try to explain the reason for it. 



I have heard poultrymen say that the male bird is half of 

 the flock. I wonder if they stop to consider whether this is so 

 or not. My birds are wonderful layers, and I mate one male 

 bird to every twelve hens, and from a breeder's point of view 

 I consider my male birds a great deal more than half the flock. 

 If I mate 100-egg type cock birds with 200-egg hens, the 

 progeny may lay about 150 eggs, thus reducing my egg- 

 yield about 25 per cent in the progeny of each of the twelve 

 hens. For this reason I have given as much thought to the 

 male bird as I have to the hen; and in arranging the charts 

 for the male birds have experienced a great deal of diffi- 

 culty, as it takes years of time and hundreds of matings 

 to arrive at conclusions that would be approximately correct. 

 In any one case, everything else (type, capacity, and breed) 

 being equal, care and environment have a dominating in- 



