CHAPTER II 

 COLOR OF RHODE ISLAND REDS 



DARK RED OF MALAY MALE FITS COLOR DESCRIPTION OF R. I. RED MALE— RICH SALMON 

 RED UNDER COLOR PREFERRED-SHADES OF BROWN NOT DESIRABLE— WHITE A SERIOUS DEFECT 



]. H. DREVENSTEDT 



COLORS cannot be satisfactorily described in words. 

 Most persons can tell the difference between red, 

 blue, green, yellow, black and white, but few 

 persons will be found who will agree on the correct 

 terms for shades or variations of these primary or basic 

 colors. Paint manufacturers print colored charts and label 

 the almost endless number of shades of red, blue, green and 

 yellow to assist the public in the selection of the color it 

 desires for house or other painting. 



Red is the most difficult of all to define or describe, as 

 the shades or tints that can be made from the carmine and 

 Vermillion bases range from a dainty pink and light orange 

 to dark maroon and deep salmon. 



RC-R|-RET> PULLET FROM FIRST PRIZE PEN M 



KANSAS GITV X- CLEVELAND SH0y^5 1902 



BcedX-QwnedB'y 



RIBSEVIEW FARV^ V^IILLOUGHQI 0- 



Real or positive red color in domesticated races of fowl 

 is found only in the comb, wattles, ear-lobes, eyes and in 

 the soft skin of the shanks; pure yellow is found only in the 

 skin, shanks and toes; neither red nor yellow appears in the 

 plumage as positve color properties. What appears to be 

 red is simply a blend of red, black and white, the two latter 

 deepening or lightening the red producing shades ranging 



14 



from a very dark brown mahogany or chestnut to a lemon or 

 gold. Ruby red, garnet red and cherry red cannot be ap- 

 plied to shades of color found in the plumage of fowls, but 

 if breeders like such terms and wish to use them, the comb, 

 wattles, ear-lobes and eyes will be found a fairly safe field 

 for their imagination. 



Among the red pigments found in the mineral and vege- 

 table worlds, Venetian red on iron-oxide, perhaps, comes 

 closest to the red found in the plumage of domesticated 

 fowls, for the real bright and unmistakable reds of the artist 

 and painter, these exist only in the plumage of cage birds 

 and wild fowl. 



The only red we ever saw on a Rhode Island Red that 

 could be identified as a shade of carmine was the peculiar 

 pinkish red produced by staining feathers with a perman- 

 ganate of potash solution. Although a most bungling job 

 of faking, it served as an object lesson in proving unmistak- 

 ably the utter futility of using mineral or vegetable reds to 

 match the red shades found in the plumage of Rhode Island 

 Reds or of any other breed where red is a Standard require- 

 ment. 



Bearing this in mind, we can readily understand the 

 difliculty in attempting to define the color of plumage of 

 fowls with a painter's color chart as a guide. 



It was perhaps, for this reason that Rhode Island Red 

 breeders, when making their Standard for Reds, avoided as 

 much as possible color terms that were foreign to the shade 

 of red found in the plumage. So they "went it light" and 

 stood pat on just the word "red" with "lighter" and "rich 

 brilliant" as qualifying the shades of red found in the sur- 

 face color and "salmon" as the proper definition of the under- 

 color. This color description is certainly flexible enough to 

 suit all judges. 



Three Shades of Red in Fowls 



There are three shades of red in fowls nearly all fanciers 

 are famiUar with, namely: The very light orange red of the 

 modern Black Red Game, the brilliant bright red of the 

 Partridge Cochin and the dark red of the Malay. The 

 latter shade of color was also found in the Black-Red Games 

 of the olden times before the craze for the so-called lemon- 

 red hackles and saddles took possession of the Game fanciers. 

 This dark red of a fine Malay male should fit the description 

 of the color of a Rhode Island Red male, especially if the 

 claim made by some investigators that the Reds owe their 

 color properties to the Malay is correct. 



The ideal Rhode Island Red male in color is one even 

 shade of red from head to juncture of back with tail, on the 

 wing-bows and wing-coverts, with breast and body to match. 

 Such a specimen may be a. rara avis, but can be closely ap- 

 proximated by careful selection in mating. The neck, back 

 and saddle hangers in some of our best modern Reds often 

 blend harmoniously, with but slight variations, in the color 

 of wing-bows the latter being a shade darker, the breast 

 often corresponding in color with the latter minus the. luster 

 found in the upper sections. The undercolor in such speci- 

 mens is a rich salmon red and if the tail and wing flights 

 show strong black coloration we are apt to find some of the 

 bluish-slate in the undercolor of the back, which from a 



