Genetic Studies in Poultry : II. The Inheritance of Skin Color

Abstract

While many investigators have studied the inheritance of plumage color in poultry comparatively few have reported on the inheritance of skin color. Bateson and Punnett (1911) carried ou the first extensive study on the inheritance of skin color in the fowl. They found the blackish pigmentation of the Silky fowl to be dependent upon one sex-linked factor. With this exception skin color has not been extensively studied. In speaking of white and yellow skin Punnett (1922 p. 115) says, “yellow and white appears to behave as a simple pair of characters, the latter being dominant to the former.” Dunn (1925) reports a similar situation in regard to the inheritance of white and yellow shank color. The factor for white shanks, which Dunn reports as practically completely dominant, is designated by him with the symbol (W) and the factor for yellow shank with (w).With the exception of .