36 cocker's manual. 



a light red. Reds will always spoil the color of grays, giving them a 

 tinge of red and brown, but grays do not spoil the reds. The best 

 colored Duckwi»gs are bred from the dark gray cross though this 

 spoils dark grays. It is well known to all good breeders that crossing 

 colors is very injudicious, as a rule all the best breeders liking each 

 sort to be exactly alike both in shape, in feather and in blood, and 

 disliking all mongrel mixed colors and crosses. * * * * * * 

 In crossing colors when the hens are of a stronger and harder color 

 than the cock, most of the cock chickens will be the color of the hen 

 and the pullets the color of the cock. For instance, in crossing brown- 

 red hens with a willow-legged black-breasted red cock most of the 

 cocks will be brown-reds and most of the pullets ot the partridge color. 

 This, however, is not a good cross." 



Darwin says : "There can be no doubt that crossing, with the aid 

 of rigorous selection during several generations, has been a potent 

 means in modifying old races, and in forming new ones. Lord Or- 

 ford crossed his famous stud of greyhounds once with the bull-dog, 

 which breed was chosen from being deficient in scenting powers, and 

 from having what was wanted, courage and perseverance. In the 

 course of six or seven generations all traces of the external form of the 

 bulldog were eliminated, but courage and perseverance remained. 

 Certain pointers have been crossed, a^i I hear from the Rev. W. D. 

 Fox, with the fox-hound, to give them dash and speed. Certain 

 strains of Dorking fowls have a slight infusion of Game blood ; and I 

 have known a great fancier who on a single occasion crossed his tur- 

 bit-pigeons with barbs, for the sake of gaining greater width of beak. 



"In the foregoing cases breeds have been crossed once, for the sake 

 of modifying some particular character ; but with most of the im- 

 proved races of the pig, which now breed true, there have been re- 

 peated crosses — for instance, the improved Essex owes its excellence 

 to repeated crosses with thfe Neapolitan, together probably with some 

 infusion of Chinese blood. So with our British sheep; almost all the 

 races, except the Southdown, have been largely crossed ; 'this, in fact, 

 has been the history of our principal breeds.' To give an example, 

 the 'Oxfordshire Downs' now rank as an established breed. They 

 were produced about the year 1830 by crossing 'Hampshire and some 

 instances Southdown ewes with Cotswold rams ;' now the Hampshire 

 jam was itself produced by repeated crosses between the native Hamp- 



