POULTRY NOTES — IQ09. Ill 



true for both of the Cornish Indian males which were used in 

 these breeding experiments. It was also true regardless of 

 the females. That is to say, some good pea combs, from the 

 show-room standpoint, were obtained from practically all of 

 the Barred Rock females. 



2. The quality from the fancier's standpoint, of the pea 

 comb obtained in the hybrids, depends in some degree on the 

 character of the individual birds used. While, as has already 

 been said, nearly every family of the cross in one direction will 

 yield some individuals with relatively good pea combs, yet it 

 is also a fact that the proportion of relatively good pea combs 

 is very much higher in some families than in others. In cer- 

 tain of the matings all of the intermediate combs are very close 

 to the perfect pea type, whereas in other individual families all 

 of the intermediate combs are much closer to the single comb 

 type. This factor of the individuality of the specimens bred 

 in the determination of the precise condition of bodily charac- 

 ters displayed by the hybrids has been very little taken into 

 account in Mendelian work so far done with poultry. That it 

 is really a very important factor no one who has had experi- 

 ence in the practical breeding of fancy poultry has any doubt 

 whatever. 



3. The range of variation from absolutely perfect single 

 combs, on the one. hand, to perfect pea combs, on the other 

 hand, is filled without break or gap by small intermediate 

 gradations in comb condition in these hybrids. The occurrence 

 of perfect single combs in the F^ generation from a cross of 

 pea by single came as a surprise. There can be no doubt, 

 however, of the objective fact. Such combs occur much more 

 frequently in the mating Barred Plymouth Rock J* x Cornish 

 Indian Game 5 than in the reciprocal cross. 



The thought is. of course, at once suggested that the reason 

 for the occurrence of these single combs was that we were 

 dealing with a heterozygous individual bearing a pea comb in 

 the original supposedly pure stock. As a matter of fact only 

 one of the hybrid families from which single-combed birds 

 were obtained shows that it is probably of this character. When 

 homozygous single comb is crossed with heterozygous pea comb 

 the expectation is that half of the progeny will bear pea combs 

 and half will bear single combs. In the one family where we 



