TYPES, BREEDS, AND VARIETIES OF FOWLS 401 



Fig. 396. Dominique hen 



(Photograph from owner, 



A. Q. Carter) 



and markings. It was found impossible to produce this with regu- 

 larity by mating males and females of the desired shade, and in 

 consequence the double-mating system 

 has been used to give this result. There 

 are really two subvarieties of the Exhi- 

 bition Barred Plymouth Rock, usually de- 

 scribed as the male line and the female 

 line respectively. 



The Exhibition male is produced by 

 mating Exhibition males to females of 

 the same line of- breeding, these being 

 very much darker and less distinctly barred 

 than the males. 



The Exhibition female is produced by 

 mating Exhibition females to males of the 

 same line of breeding, these being much 

 lighter in shade and usually less distinctly 

 barred. The color of the Barred Plymouth 



Rock is most difficult to describe. It varies in varying lights, and 



the effect depends much also on 



the width and regularity of the 



bars. As now described in the 



American Standard, the ground 



is grayish-white, the dark bars 



stopping short of positive black. 

 White Plymouth Rocks. The 



credit of introducing the White 



Plymouth Rock as such to the 



public is generally conceded to 



O. F. Frost, of Monmouth, Maine. 



The Frost stock, considered the 



best of the early strains, is said 



to have come, about 1 875-1 876, 



as sports from the barred variety. 



Such sports still sometimes come 



from matings of Barred Rocks 



and, according to the common testimony of those who have had 



and who have bred them, almost invariably reproduce only white 



Fig. 397. Barred Plymouth Rock hen 

 (Photograph from United States De- 

 partment of Agriculture) 



