Licence: In copyright
Credit: Reports to the Evolution Committee of the Royal Society. 1-5. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.
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![colour may give hoary plants, but very rarely, not more than 1 in 1000 perhaps. In view of their evidence the suggestion here made is exceedingly remote, but some reference to this obvious possibility is called for. In considering the other aberrant group of cases where cross-breds on self-fertilisation gave too high a proportion of recessives with some consistency, the possibility of false hybridism on the recessive side should not be forgotten.] Part II.—Poultry. Experiments hegun in 1898, earned out by W. Bateson. The two breeds first chosen for experiment were Indian Game and White Leghorn. Experiments were subsequently made with Brown Leghorn, White Dorking, and with a single white Wyandotte hen. Indian Game are dark birds with yellow legs and pea combs. By a pea comb is meant a comb consisting of three fairly regular longi- tudinal ridges, along each of which are several more or less lumpy tubercles. In both sexes the pea comb is low, that of the cock rising about 1 to 1^ inch from the skull, while that of the hen is only about ^ to ^ inch high, being in fact rudimentary. In the hen the tubercles may be almost entirely suppressed. Any one who desires to examine such combs can see them any day in a poulterer's shop. From the *' single comb of the Leghorns the pea comb is readily distingmshed by the absence of sharp serrations, and by the presence of the lateral ridges (often obliterated in old hens). In correlation with the low comb, the wattles are also very short, being almost rudimentary in the hen, and only about 1 inch long in the cock. The ear-lobes in both sexes are bright red, like the wattles, but they project very slightly, and though a little full below, they are never pendulous, as in the Leghorn cock. The plumage of the cock is for the most part black, shot with dark green. The hackles and saddle are broken with a variable amount of dark red, which if noticeable, is considered by the fancier a fault. There is a large brown patch extending across the secondaries. The plumage of the hen, with the exception of the hackles which](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22652188_0091.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
