HOUWINK’S EXPER. CONC. THE ORIGIN OF SOME DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 155: 
feathered recessive white, and the Silky gave exclusively whole-coloured. 
birds in F;. In F such birds gave 9 whole-coloured to 7 whites. 
A few white birds in Fy had the chest and throat buff or choco- 
late brown, and in one hen the chest feathers had quite the same 
design as the back feathers. One bird 222.1. had a few brown 
feathers among the yellow ones in the tailcoverts. 
With an eye to the phenomena of deviating plumage-colour in 
one of our Bankiva-pens we dare not pay too much attention to 
these facts, though we cann’t help, pointing out that our results 
entirely agree with CUNNINGHAM’S on this subject. Such specimens 
as observed by both of us, give rise indeed to the supposition 
that some crossing-over takes place. 
Leg feathering. 
The legfeathering proved to be incompletely dominant to clean- 
leg. In both F}’s together 25 + 18 = 43 birds there was some varia- 
tion in the extent of the feathering. In Silkies the legfeathering 
may be called strong. As our Silkies in pure breed did not show 
this variation, this phenomenon may be dependent eighter upon 
external influences or upon some factor of factors from the clean- 
legged Jungle fowl, in the pure-bred strain of which we occasionally 
observed, as we mentioned above, a slight leg-feathering in chickens 
bred from parents with absolutely clean shanks. 
_ In Fy a still greater variation in the extent of legfeathering was 
shown than in F,; and clean-legged birds appeared. The ratio was: 
Bankiva mother: Silky mother Fo» of recipr. Ff's. 
Legfeathering : 37 35 9 
clean leg : 76 | 6 | 2 
together: | 
feathered legs : 81 
clean 2 3 84 
In these 81 birds with feathered legs are included 8 specimens which 
showed only traces of feathering. Since we know from PUNNETT’S. 
remarkable paper that phaenotypically clean-legged poultry geno- 
typically may possess a factor for legfeathering, we think it very 
dangerous to suggest an explanation of the relation between birds 
with clean and with feathered legs. Perhaps we will revert to this. 
point later. 
