APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES OF BREEDING 509 



Fig. 513. Single-Combed Brown Leghorn 

 cock, very full breast ^ 



ground all over, and on this ground 

 two or three pencilings of darker 

 brown on each feather, except where 

 feathers are black in wings and tail, 

 and in the hackle where the feathers 

 are striped with black. 



These Standard color require- 

 ments for the different sexes are in 

 a measure incompatible. There is a 

 natural difference in the coloration 

 of the sexes. The tendency in the 

 male is toward greater intensity of 

 color and the occurrence of the 

 more brilliant color in the distinctive , 

 male plumage ; the tendency in the 

 female is toward a duller tone and 

 a more uniform distribution of 

 colors. But in bisexual reproduc- 

 tion these tendencies in a measure 

 counteract each other, as the breeder 

 of fowls of this color type finds 

 when he tries to produce, from 

 females in which the colors are distributed, males with colors distinctly sep- 

 arated, and from males in which he has segregated the colors in different 

 sections, females in which the colors are 

 distributed through all sections. His 

 difficulties are increased when, as in the 

 penciled varieties, he tries to secure a 

 general separation by sections of color 

 in the male, and in the female the same 

 distribution of color in nearly all sections, 

 with separation of the colors in a distinct 

 pattern in each feather. 



Very early in the development of 

 colors in black-red types fanciers dis- 

 covered that the production of males 

 and females of the desired colors from 

 matings of Standard specimens was un- 

 certain ; that the male with solid black 

 breast, mated with the female of correct 

 shade and type, was likely to produce 

 (through cross heredity in direct trans- 

 mission, and the blending of colors) 



Fig. 514. Single-Combed Brown 

 Leghorn hen ^ 



1 Owned by GroVe Hill Poultry Yards, Waltham, Massachusetts. Photograph 

 by Schilling. 



