OF STANDARD FOWLS 
most always caused by the oil of the bird and can 
be washed out. Chicks from the best white 
strains when hatched are often of a mouse or 
slate color, which they retain until six or eight 
weeks of age. 
To the average fancier black fowls may seem to 
have the same shade of black; yet to the pains- 
taking, observant breeder of black fowls there ap- 
pears a color aura overcasting each black breed, 
superinduced by the color of skin, legs and feet. 
For instance, the sheen of the plumage of a black 
breed with yellow skin, willow legs and yellow 
bottoms to feet is noticeably different in its over- 
casting aura from the sheen of a black breed with 
black or blackish legs, white or flesh colored bot- 
toms to feet and with white skin. On the yellow 
skin fowl this many times is apparent in a bronzed 
appearance of what should be the greenish sheen. 
This is more tangible to the average fancier than 
the color aura before mentioned. The bronzing 
is related to the yellow skin and not necessarily 
to the objectionable purple barring. Purple bar- 
ring bears the same relation to black fowls that 
brassiness does to white fowls and its permanency 
can be traced to the same cause, namely, short 
breeding and infusions of foreign blood, and not 
always lack of care or ill health. 
Nature always asserts itself in surface indica- 
tions on black fowls wherever there is trouble 
internally. In such cases the plumage takes on a 
brown dingy cast throughout. Sometimes it only 
appears in plumage under wing and in under-color 
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