86 THE AMERICAN BREEDS OF POULTRY 



Size of feathers. The size of the individual feather has much to do 

 with the effect of the color-type when viewed at a distance. A Silver 

 Wyandotte hen, for instance, may have excellent lacing, clear white 

 centers, and sound black edging, but the individual feathers may be 

 so small that the lacing is relatively small, and the white centers 

 are largely overlapped by other feathers; whereas if the individual 

 feathers are comparatively large, the open centers are correspondingly 

 large, the overlapping is not so heavy and the whole color scheme 

 stands out and shows off. 



Colors found in the plumage. It is generally believed that all of 

 the colors in chickens are derived from the black and red of the 

 jungle fowl. It would appear true that the only primary colors 

 which poultrymen have had to work with have been black and red; 

 there is no blue in chickens and no green. I once stood in Kensing- 

 ton Gardens in London and saw a peacock with his lustrous, deep 

 blue breast and at once anticipated what a beautiful fowl the Blue 

 Wyandotte might be bred to be, but that was before I had fully 

 grasped the fact that blue in the Wyandotte is not due to blue pig- 

 ment. W. A. Lippincott has pointed out that blue in chickens is due 

 to the arrangement of the pigment granules in the feather structure, 

 for the pigment itself is black, and the fact that the granules are 

 round, instead of rod shaped as in black colored fowls, leaves a pig- 

 mentless space around the border of each cell, giving a bluish-gray 

 cast. In other words the blue chicken is a minute black and white 

 mosaic. 



As blue in chickens is a modified black, buff is a modified red. 

 It is a red toned with white. I have seen a Rhode Island Red male 

 crossed on White Orpington females and there were thus produced 

 acceptable buff pullets in all save tail where black dominated. 



Red is not found alone but always in combination with black as 

 in the Rhode Island Red which has a black tail, black in wing" 

 flights and not uncommonly in hackle and under plumage. 



Black is found alone, a melanic condition. It is, however, as 

 remarkable that it should be found pure as that pure white spots 

 should appear in chickens. C. B. Davenport found that if you intro- 

 duce black-red of the jungle fowl as carried by the black-red game, 

 into the Black Cochin, the hybrids are of a "prevailing black but 

 about half of them show red lacing on the hackle feathers or a red 

 neppering in those places where red is displayed by the game." 

 Davenport then states: "Black is dominant over red but imper- 

 fectly so." 



White plumage. White generally is considered by poultrymen as 

 an absence of color. However, recent studies have shown that there 

 is more than one kind of white in chickens, at least from a hereditary 

 standooint.. 



The white of White Plymouth Rocks and White Wyandottes is 

 recessive. When used in crossbreeding with colored fowls it does 



