HOUWINK’S EXPER. CONC. THE ORIGIN OF SOME DOMESTIC ANIMALS 243 
that the hackles are quite bankiva-like without a black median stripe 
on the feathers’ At the time when this is written, the 24th of Decem- 
ber 1923, the animal is still alive and in prime condition and now shows 
the Sonnerat belt between breast and belly very plainly, as the photo 
on Pl. IX fig. 7 shows distinctly. 
Of the cock 282.2 & the junior author wrote: „Is best described as a 
somewhat heavy bankiva-cock; the breast is almost black, contains 
but a very few brown feathers; but the bill is distinctly yellow and 
the legs are green-yellow.”’ 
The photo's (Pl. IX fig. 6and Pl. V fig. 5), taken in 1923 and 1922, 
show the heavy build of the bird very distinctly, with the exception of 
this embonpoint, the animal is distinctly bankivian without a trace of 
black median stripes on the hackles. In the spring of 1923 a Sonnera- 
tian influence was apparent in the presence of rudimentary waxy spots 
on the collar, which jumped into the eye when the collar was obser- 
ved as a whole. Examination of these spots with a lense showed ho- 
wever that they were not, as in true Sonnerats, broadenings of the 
shaft, but mere simulations by convergence of barbs near the tip. 
Similar arrangements can be seen on the collar-feathers of barred 
Plymouth rocks. 
To day (Dec. 24 1923), now the cock is not quite through its moult, 
these simili-spots are not at all conspicuous. 
The F, cock 276.1 (Pl. IX fig. 2) is almost a bankiva; it has however 
a black stripe in the medianline ofthe hacklesand of the saddlefeathers 
and a violet gloss on the greater wingcoverts, the tail being green. 
Breast and belly are almost black, a little mottled with brown. 
There is a Sonneratian brown zone between the breast and belly and 
a simulation of waxy spots by converging barbs near the tips of the 
neck-feathers. 
The F, cock 276.2 is almost identical with 270.1 3, the latter being 
his uncle (his father’s brother) e. g. it shows a „varius-influence” in the 
somewhat blunt shape of the hackles. There is a slightly more distinct 
Sonneratian influence discernable than in the case of 276.1, in as 
much as the shape of the feathers of the brown Sonneratian zone, 
between the breast and the belly, is more Sonneratian. Also the simu- 
lation of waxy spots by converging barbs near the tips of the feathers 
of the hackles and especially of the tailcoverts, is more distinct; those 
of the latter are even deceptive if not observed through a lense. 
