352 MR. J. T. CUNNINGHAM ON 



and hatched in incubators about April 14th. The chicks were 

 examined on April 17th, with the following results : — 



A. From the pile parents there were 16 chicks, 13 of which 



were yellow without spots. The other three were coloured. 



(1) Bluish primaries and rump, reddish back, sides and belly 



yellow. 



(2) Smoky black on head and back, and on wing-primaries. 



(3) Smoky black on back and head. 



B. From the pale pile cock with white hens there were 19 chicks : 



of these 11 had yellow down apparently without colour, 

 and 8, including one that died after hatching, had some 

 colour. Of these 8, four had one or two black spots and 

 four had more continuous colour, the darkest being the 

 dead one, which was dai'k smoky black over the head and 

 the wdiole of the back and wings. 



The other three were as follows : — 



(1) Slightly greenish on rumji. 



(2) Slightly bluish rnmp, head ditto, otherwise yellow. 



(3) Back dark reddish combined with blackish colour, slight 



black spot on head. 



If we consider these lots separately, the theoretical expectation, 

 on the supposition that the black-red colour of the original male 

 parent was a single character, would be one-fourth black-red in F^, 

 the black-red being recessive. Thus in the chicks from Pen A', 

 16 in number, there should have been 4 coloured: the actual 

 number wa,s 3. Of the chicks from Pen B, 19 in number, one- 

 fourth would be between 4 and 5, or vei-y nearly 5. The actual 

 number was 4 if we include only those which had more or less 

 continiious colour. If we take the two lots together, all the Fj's 

 being heterozygote, the number of coloured recessives was 7 out 

 of 35. It would l)e expected, however, that black-red recessive 

 chicks in the down would be brown with black stripes, like the 

 black-red dominants in my cross between bankiva and Silky. 

 There were none at all like this. 



On October 9th I made a careful examination of these birds of 

 the F., generation, which were then in mature plumage, and their 

 characters were : — 



A. From pile parents. 



7 Cocks, all showing the pile coloration, but with different 

 degrees of intensity in the colour on the back, ranging from pale 

 yellow to red. 



1 . Deeply coloured pile ; legs yellow. A photograph of the 



skin of this bird is shown in PI. I. fig. 1. 



2. Similar but not so deep a colour ; legs yellow. 



