280 



JOURNAL OF HORTICUIiTURB AND COTTAGE GAEDENER, 



[ April 13, 1871. 



orchard honse are eaten by a weevil, Otiorhyachns tenebricosus. They 

 feed at night ; then go with a ligitt, place a white cloth beneath a tree, 

 shake it, and dispose of the marauders which fall upon the cloth. 



Insects {C. C. JE:.).— Tour "gentleman" is the larva of one of the 

 ground beetles fHarpalidie), and his " occupation " is that of eating small 

 worms and other Foft-bodied underground creatures. Some of his 

 brethren occasionally indulge in the tender shoots of cereals.— I. O. W. 



Name of Flower (H. M. J.)'— The correct name is Chines9 Primrose, 

 Primula sinensis. 



POULTRY, BEE. AUD PIGEON CHKONICLE. 



INFLUENCE OF THE MALE BIRD. 



I AH reminded by otir "Chaplain's" letter, in last week's 

 Journal, of the almost utter want of positive knowledge amongst 

 poultry fanciers as to the real time during which the definite 

 influence of any given male bird extends after separation or 

 change. No question is of greater importance to all breeders, 

 and yet, strange to say, it cannot be said to have been as yet 

 satisfactorily decided. 



About a year ago I mentioned that several American breeders 

 ■were about to make special experiments to determine the matter, 

 and I had hoped ere this to have been able to slate something 

 conclusive ; but the most crucial of the tests proposed were 

 either not carried out, or have not yet been reported. The 

 subject has, however, aroused a greit amount of attention in 

 the United States, and several useful enmmunieafions have 

 come to hand, and been published in the Poultry Bulletin and 

 I have, therefore, thought it might be well at the present season 

 to collect from that useful journal the principal evidence yet 

 brought forward, in the hope that some of our own breeders 

 may be able to throw further light on the matter. 



A contemporary first quotes two statements of fact from the 

 jilassaclmsetts Ploughman. Fact number one concerns two 

 Bolton-Grey hens, which came from a yard where only the 

 pure breed was kept, but on their way were cooped one night 

 only with a Dorking cock. They each laid an egg before start- 

 ing next morning, and a neighbour wishing some Bolton-Grey 

 eggs, these were given in full confidence that they would pro- 

 duce pure Bolton-Greys. Not so : the chicks when hatched 

 had all the colour of Boltons, but five toes and other marks of 

 the Dorking. Fact number two concerns a hen which escaped 

 alone to the woods, where she laid a clutch of eggs, and brought 

 out twelve chicks, no other fowls being near : hence nearly if 

 not all the clutch must have been fertilised before the escape. 

 The two facts appear at first sight inconsistent, and the Editor 

 of the Bulletin thinks the first incredible. I do not, having 

 known similar cases ; but let us go on. 



The writer of the article himself one day only accidentally 

 allowed a Light Brahma cock to get along with some Danvers 

 White hens, the latter beinga breed formed between Buff Cochins 

 and White Dorkings, having White Dorking bodies with bare 

 yellow legs. The chicks came, some with the cross most dis- 

 tinctly marked, some with very little of it, and some none at 

 all, except a tendency to feathered legs. This case, like the one 

 from the Plougliman, opens up several questions, which the 

 writer himself states as follows :— 1, Was the Brahma father 

 to all the chicks showing points? 2, Was he father to any? 

 3, Can a chick have two fathers? and 4, Did the unfortunate 

 connection re-awaken the tendency to feather derived from the 

 Cochin ancestry ? 



The next two cases recorded seem to extend the time. In 

 one, a gentleman breeding Game, finding a neighbour's feather- 

 legged Bantam cock come over occasionally, penned his hens 

 up securely, and saved no eggs for a month after. He then 

 thought them safe, but several of the chickens had feathered 

 legs, though with no other sign of the cross. Again, Mr. E. 

 Hewlett writes that he separated a fine Buff hen, which, after 

 being placed entirely alone, laid sixteen eggs, from which she 

 hatched fourteen chickens. 



In the next number of the Bulletin we have an interesting 

 letter from Mr. I. K. Felch, one of the largest and most careful 

 American breeders, which deserves special attention. Kefer- 

 ring to the known fact that one visit to a Turkey cock fertilises 

 the whole batch of eggs, he notes the corresponding fact, which 

 I never remember to have seen before noticed in connection, 

 that even in a state of nature, after the hen has begun to lay, 

 she totally avoids the male bird. With the common hen this 

 is not the case, and the reflection is at once suggested. Whether 

 the economy of Nature be not altogether different in the two 

 binds of fowl ? He then goes on to state, that after all his great 



experience, he has arrived at and always acted upon the con- 

 viction, that if the first three eggs laid after removal from a male 

 companion occur within four days, they will be his progeny, and 

 that the fourth will belong to the new one. And the evidence 

 he gives is very emphatic, as he allows all his young stock for 

 sale to run together indiscriminately before shipment, trusting 

 to the few days on rail or steamer to counteract the evil, and 

 he gives the names of many purchasers to prove that this is 

 invariably done, and that the birds when arrived breed pure. 

 Eeferring then to Mr. Hewlett's no less conclusive experiment 

 with the Buff hen, he confesses himself puzzled, and suggests 

 whether it may not be true, even supposing a separated hen 

 may hatch for a fortnight after separation, that in case of a 

 second mate being introduced, the influence of the first is 

 made void. 



In the next number Mr. Huntington, one of the best Ameri- 

 can Game-breeders, corroborates Mr. Felch, from an experience 

 of twenty years, that the influence of the cock ceases after the 

 fourth egg. And in the nest, again, Mr. Felch reports a special 

 experiment. He separated two Brahma hens, but they only 

 laid one egg, the change stopping them till the fifth day. Set- 

 ting the eggs, one only of the third eggs, laid on the sixth day, 

 showed signs of hatching, the remainder keeping clear. He 

 also quotes another gentleman who had a lot of mixed Bantams 

 together, and saving the eggs one week after the kinds had 

 been properly separated, found the breeds pure. 



The next letter on the subject is from a Mr. Woodward, and 

 goes the other way. In March he loight some Spanish 

 pullets which had run in the winter with " Bucks County " 

 cocks. No eggs were set till May, two months after purchase 

 and four months after separation, yet the chicks even then 

 showed " Bucks County " points in a degree. The contradic- 

 tion is, however, in this case more apparent than real, it being 

 a well-known fact that the first union will often affect the 

 whole future progeny, in which no actual direct parentage can 

 be possible. He also states, as a proof of the influence of 

 colour on the imagination of the hens, that during a period he 

 had some Light Brahma hens running with his Spanish ; the 

 Spanish chicks came with white feathers mingled with the black, 

 which ceased as soon as the white fowls were removed. Next 

 month another correspondent gives a similar case. He put a 

 single-combed Brahma hen into a fine pen of Creve-Cceurs. 

 The next clutch of chicks varied in colour, most were worthless, 

 and three had single combs. The Brahma was removed, and 

 the chicks came all right. In these cases no alien parentage 

 had anything to do with it ; it was simply the influence on the 

 hens of sight and imagination. 



Another correspondent separated both Dorking and Cochin 

 hens, and set the eggs laid for six days ; they all proved fertile. 

 The last letter on the subject relates that a Light Brahma cock 

 becoming ill (and finally dying), the eggs of a favourite pullet 

 were set till the tenth day after he became prostrate, when she 

 stopped for two or three days only. The tenth egg was fertile, 

 but when she commenced again, though the cessation had been 

 very brief, they were worthless. 



I have now reviewed the whole of the evidence in the Ameri- 

 can periodicals. I believe the whole to be trustworthy, and it 

 seems at first sight as if nothing definite could be gained from 

 it. This, however, I think would be an incorrect conclusion : 

 and while I am conscious that considerable uncertainty yet 

 remains over much of the question, and trust some of our 

 breeders may be able to throw light upon it to a much further 

 extent, I venture to suggest the following conclusions as some- 

 what probable. To dogmatise would be folly in a matter of 

 which the very premises are as yet of such a merely tentative 

 character. 



1. It seems at least in the highest degree probable, that the 

 influence of a given male lasts longer if no successor be intro- 

 duced, or that, in fact, it may either remain for a certain time 

 if undisturbed, or if disturbed be in a less time (but how much 

 less is hardly certain) neutralised or rather overpowered by the 

 second. 



2. It seems nearly certain that whatever the precise time be, 

 the influence of a given male in ordinary cases lasts for a con- 

 siderably less time than has been generally supposed. 



3. It seems established that there is such a thing as an extra- 

 ordinary influence. That the first union often has a lasting 

 effect is well known. Hens first crossed with a Polish cook have 

 been known to show a tendency to breed crested chicks all their 

 lives ; and cases in my own knowledge have led me to think it 

 extremely probable that, say a Brahma hen first crossed with a 

 Dorking might throw occasionally five-toed chicks afterwards. 



I 



