Ko. 644] INHERITANCE OF PLUMAGE COLOR 253 



hae, from which the Light Brahmas were derived. These 

 fowls were imported into the United States from China 

 in the decade before 1850^ and into England shortly 

 afterward. At about the same period and often in the 

 same shipments were imported certain buff birds which 

 eventually became the foundation stock of the Buff Co- 

 chin breed from which practically all buff varieties of 

 the present day received their color. These two varieties 

 were practically identical in characters other than plu- 

 mage color^<> and in the matter of plumage the chief dif- 

 ference was the difference in body feathers, being white 

 more or less stippled with gray in the Shanghaes and 

 buff similarly stippled with gray (mealiness) in the Buff 

 Cochins. In China, observers have regarded the buff as 

 the older color variety while the gray was noted as sep- 

 arate about 1840.' 1 The Chinese apparently paid little 

 attention to color in breeding their fowls and the vari- 

 ation from buff to white (or the reverse) in the plumage 

 may have occurred many years or even centuries pre- 

 vious to this date. 



The further differences between Columbian and Buff 

 breeds have taken place since their introduction from the 

 Orient, chiefly under the selective breeding of English 

 and American poultrymen. The buffs were at first char- 

 acterized by a great deal of variation in the shade of the 

 principal color — ranging from lemon to red; while the 

 wings, and tails, and tips or margins of the hackles va- 

 ried from solid black through stippling and blotching to 

 an absence of black in any one of these parts.^^ All 

 subsequent selection has been against the black^^ and 

 the American Standard of Perfection now specifies " buff 

 in all parts of the plumage." In the Shanghaes or Light 

 Brahmas on the other hand the object of the breeder 



9 Weir, Johnson and Brown, "The Poultry Book," N. Y., 1912, p. 52«. 



10 Tegetmeier, W. B., loc. cit., p. 63. 



11 Weir, Johnson and Bro\vn, loc. cit., p. 528. 



12 Weir, Johnson and Brown, loc. cit., p. 527; p. 630, p. 540. Tegetmeier, 

 loc. cit., pp. 40-41. 



"With the exception of the selection for black in hackles, wing and 

 tail which was employed in developing the Buff Brahma variety. 



