LEGHORN AND RUMPLESS GAME. 



6l 



Series XII.— Single-comb White Leghorn Bantam and Blacic-breasted Red Rumpless Game, 



STATEMENT OF PROBLEM. 

 This cross was undertaken primarily to test the inheritance of rumplessness, 

 and secondarily of the more primitive game coloration against white plumage 

 color. 



THE RACES AS A WHOLE. 



The White Leghorns have been described at pages 37 and 39. The Black- 

 breasted Red Game closely resembles the wild Jungle fowl in color (figs. 

 45 and 46). 



TABLE OF CHARACTERISTICS. 



REMARKS ON THE CHARACTERISTICS. 



Uropygium. — The absence of uropygium is a characteristic that has long 

 been known among fowl, but there seems to be little knowledge of its mor- 

 phology. In ordinary fowl there are five free caudal vertebrae, followed by 

 a fused portion — the uropygial bone. In the case of a rumpless Game female 

 (No. 119, fig. 45) dissected by me, there are two unsymmetrically formed 

 and intimately fused vertebrae behind the fifteenth synsacral — the posterior 

 limit of the sacral vertebrae. That there are two is shown by distinct trans- 

 verse processes with spaces of the passage of the nerves. Behind these is a 

 knob of bone about i mm. in diameter. These three elements constitute 

 the entire caudal skeleton. It is profoundly reduced from the normal. 



Rumplessness may be found in any race. It has cropped out in two of 

 the 800 fowl bred at this station in the past year — hybrids derived from the 

 Minorca- Polish and the Leghorn- Houdan crosses. It seems like a misuse 

 of the term breed to speak of a "Rumpless breed," as poultry books do. 



The characteristic is referred to by Aldrovandus in 1645,' by Temminck, 

 and by other early writers. Its origin has been ascribed to Persia, to Cey- 

 lon, and to China ; doubtless it occurs in all these places as well as in many 

 others. Taillessness early appeared among fowls in America. Clayton 

 (1693, p. 992) asserted that he had observed that in "Virginia" most of the 

 cocks and hens were without tails, and Wright states that he was informed 

 by a West Indian in 1872 "that the greater number of fowls in his own 

 neighborhood had no tails." Darwin (1876, Chapter VII) refers to this 

 characteristic and states that one bird he examined had no oil gland; the 

 same is true of the three rumpless Games that I have had. Among the 



