I wish to call especial attention to the cut of a White Run- 

 ner female given herewith, "The White Queen." I believe her to- 

 be the most typical Runner in the sport-ancestry of the White 

 Runners in this country. This bird is, moreover, a straight sport, 

 as far as anything I really know can show. I do know that no 

 white blood has been introduced into her ancestry since it came 

 into my hands, some years before her arrival on the scene; nor 

 for some years previous to this. It is a known fact that all col- 

 ored breeds sometimes "sport" into white. The White Queen is 

 the ancestor of many birds better than herself : a sufficient proof 

 of good blood. 



White Runners are not an absolutely new product except 

 in specific cases. Mr. H. DeCourcy, speaking of the Runners as 

 they appeared in Ireland some years ago, wrote, in the Reliable 

 Poultry Journal, that the Runners had been bred for several years, 

 by farmers, with no regard to type and feathering. Yet he stated 

 that the distinctive features of the bird were so fixed that they 

 still tended to dominate. I noticed that he referred to the "car- 

 riage" as penguin-like, not making the blunder of the American 

 190.5 Standard in saying that the form is like the penguin, which 

 is positively absurd! 



He spoke of three distinct varieties at the time of writing,, 

 known in Ireland, and said that the penciled fawn and white — 

 "a heautiiully-penciled fawn color," as he described it — "certain- 

 ly has a distinctive shape and carriage which the other varieties 

 possess but in a modified form, and it is most probable that both 

 the Brown-and-White and the White varieties have been bred 

 from the original Fawn-and- White, either by the admixture of 

 foreign blood, or by selection, or by both." 



This testimony must be considered by any fair mind as 

 absolutely unbiased, because it was given before our Standard- 

 makers discovered that the plain fawn, with white, was "the one 

 and only true." It was published in this country before there 



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