importation of Walton stock, (even to the extent of denying Mr. 

 Walton's own statements about the matter), has recently come out 

 in defense of the green egg. All these things point to the use of 

 the "new native" blood to improve the American Standard birds. 

 In the 1912-13 show I saw for the first time a bird in the Ameri- 

 can Standard class almost as good in all-around type as many of 

 the English Penciled birds. 



However, smce the American Standard continues to call for 

 legs wide apart and penguin form, and breeders are beginning to 

 defend the requirement for "legs well apart", which I think they 

 have never done before, it will be impossible for the American 

 Standard birds ever to equal the English birds in type so long as 

 they breed to the demands of the American Standard and judge 

 by it. If judges favor the round bird despite the American 

 Standard demand for "penguin form", breeders will breed for 

 the round bird in spite of what the Standard says. Even an ex- 

 president of the American Poultry Association has been heard to 

 say, recently, from a University platform, that birds are judged 

 here by a fashion-standard set by judges in the big shows, and 

 not really by the strict words of the American Standard of Per- 

 fection. 



The demand for "penguin form" is one of the things no one 

 can explain. The best English breeders do not seem to know 

 why it was used. "Penguin carriage" — had it been demanded, 

 one could understand : but penguin form ? Consider ! the pen- 

 guin, as described and illustrated in our authoritative works, is a 

 short, thick bird with a very short, thick neck, which sits on its 

 stern, with its back at an angle of possibly seventy degrees. It is 

 notably thick and broad at the middle, and its wings are "flippers," 

 without quills, held pointing downward and forward. Imagine a 

 Runner of that form\ And, imagine the American Standard of 

 "Perfection" gravely demanding that form for ten years'. 

 "Long, narrow, racy-looking," and "resembling the penguin \n 



34 



