14 INHERITANCE. Chap. XIII. 



conclusion seems to me highly curious and novel, I will give 

 the evidence in detail. 



My attention was first called to this subject,, and I was led to 

 make numerous experiments, by MM. Boitard and Corbie having 

 stated that, when they crossed certain breeds of pigeons, birds 

 coloured like the wild C. livia, or the common dovecot — namely, 

 slaty-blue, with double black wing-bars, sometimes chequered. 

 with black, white loins, the tail barred with black, with the outer 

 feathers edged with white, — were almost invariably produced. The 

 breeds which I crossed, and the remarkable results attained, have 

 been fully described in the sixth chapter. I selected pigeons 

 belonging to true and ancient breeds, which had not a trace of blue 

 or any of the above specified marks ; but when crossed, and their 

 mongrels recrossed, young birds were often produced, more or less 

 plainly coloured slaty-blue, with some or all of the proper charac- 

 teristic marks. I may recall to the reader's memory one case, 

 namely, that of a pigeon, hardly distinguishable from the wild 

 Shetland species, the grandchild of a reel-spot, white fantail, and 

 two black barbs, from any of which, when purely-bred, the produc- 

 tion of a pigeon coloured like the wild (.'. livia would have been 

 almost a prodigy. 



I was thus led to make the experiments, recorded in the seventh 

 chapter, on fowls. I selected long-established pure breeds, in 

 which there was not a trace of red, yet in several of the mongrels 

 feathers of this colour appeared ; and one magnificent bird, the 

 offspring of a black Spanish cock and white Silk hen, was coloured 

 almost exactly like the wild Gattus bankiva. All who know any- 

 thing of the breeding of poultry will admit that tens of thousands 

 of pure Spanish and of pure white Silk fowls might have been 

 reared without the appearance of a red feather. The fact, given on 

 the authority of Mr. Tegetmeier, of the frequent appearance, in 

 mongrel fowls, of pencilled or transversely-barred feathers, like 

 those common to inauy gallinaceous birds, is likewise apparently a 

 ca^e of reversion to a character formerly possessed by some ancient 

 progenitor of the family. I owe to the kindness of this excellent 

 observer the opportunity of inspecting some neck-hackles and tail- 

 feathers from a hybrid between the common fowl and a very distinct 

 species, the GaUus varius; and these feathers are transversely 

 striped in a conspicuous manner with dark metallic blue and grey, 

 a character which could not have been derived from either immediate 

 parent. 



I have been informed by Mr. B. P. Brent, that he crossed a white 

 Aylesbury drake and a black so-called Labrador duck, both of 

 which are true breeds, and he obtained a young drake closely liko 

 the mallard (J., boschas). Of the musk-duck (Cairina moschata, Linn.) 

 there are two sub-breeds, namely, white and slate-coloured; and these 

 I am informed breed true, or nearly true. But the Rev. W. D. Fox 

 tells me that, by putting a white drake to a slate-coloured duck. 



