Io8 MAINE) AGRICULTURAL e:xPERIME;NT STATION. I9IO. 



come yellow-shanked and the females black-shanked. The 

 females which have the black shanks are the birds which are 

 solid black in plumage color (cf. p. 88). 



There is, as would be expected, some variation in the inten- 

 sity of the black pigmentatioin of the shanks in these hybrids. 

 The color ranges from a very dark bottle green in some cases 

 where the normal yellow is mixed with a relatively small 

 amount of black pigment to an intense coal black in other speci- 

 mens. In no single specimen would there be any question 

 about classifying the bird as black-shanked. The shanks are 

 evenly pigmented with the black pigment, and it is sufficient in 

 amount to give them in superficial examination always a black 

 coloration. Spots of black pigment occur more or less fre- 

 quently on the shanks of the normally yellow-shanked breeds 

 like Barred Rock and Cornish Indian Game. The black color- 

 ation of the shanks of these hybrids, however, is of a totally 

 different order. As has been said the pigmentation in the hy- 

 brid is evenly distributed over the whole shank. 



The coloration of the beak is apparently correlated with the 

 coloration of the shanks. A table exactly like that given above 

 for the inheritance of shank color in the F^ generation could 

 also be made out for the inheritance of beak color. It appears 

 to be the case that these two portions of the body are corre- 

 lated quite perfectly with respect to their coloration. 



THL DOWN COLOR 01^ THL HYBRID CHICKS. 



As indicated in Table 2 (page 85) the first chick down is 

 normally quite differently colored in the two breeds which were 

 used in these hybridization experiments. The normal down 

 color of the Plymouth Rock chick when just hatched is a dark 

 gray to black with creamery white markings, the belly always 

 being white. The Cornish Indian Game chicks have a beau- 

 tiful cream colored down with a distinct mahogany or brown 

 pattern on the back. The main feature of this pattern con- 

 sists of two longitudinal stripes. In the first hybrid genera- 

 tion resulting from crossing these two breeds the down color 

 of the great majority of chicks is uniformly black. The color 

 is a more intense black than that seen in the Plymouth Rock 

 chicks. There is ordinarily no white down whatever on these 

 hybrid chicks. There may, however, be an occasional indi- 



