474 POULTRY CULTURE 



average table quality than the fowls of America, where yellow- 

 skinned poultry is generally preferred. It is not the color of the 

 skin, but selection for quality, that makes the difference. The 

 European breeders give careful attention to meat quality ; in 

 America very little attention has been given to the development 

 of fine quality in table fowls. 



Tradition, prejudice, and superficial observation are the princi- 

 pal sources of ideas of correlation of external and internal charac- 

 ters in poultry. In a general way the development and condition 

 of external characters indicate the development and condition of 

 all characters. Correlation of development is general rather than 

 special. The substantial characters of a species are necessarily 

 closely correlated. In a state of nature the superficial characters 

 are also closely correlated, but in domestication natural groups 

 may be broken up and new combinations formed, and after a few 

 generations the combination as a whole tends to reproduce with 

 only slight modifications. 



