Practical poultry men have recognized for several years that a close relation exists between the amount of yellow pigment to be seen in the shanks, ear lobes, beaks, etc., of hens of certain breeds of poultry, such as the Leghorns, Plymouth Rocks, Wyandottes, and Rhode Island Reds, and their previous laying activity.Rice,' Kent,2 and others have believed that heavy laying causes the leg color of these breeds of fowls to fade and have made use of this bdief in selecting heavy from light laying hens at the close of the laying season.Blakeslee and Warn& and the same authors with Harris and Kirkpatrick' have made extensive biometric analyses of data collected by them, to ascertain the correlation existing between the color of the ear lobes, shanks, beak, etc., and previous egg laying activity.The data were collected at the Storm Agricultural Experiment Station egg laying competitions during a period of several years.These data show that in hens which naturally carry yellow pigmentation in their ear lobes, shanks, beak, etc. a positive correlation exists between pale shanks, ear lobes, beak, etc. and a recent more or less heavy egg production.The data indicate, also, that practical use may be made of this correlation for the selection
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Palmer et al. (1919) studied this question.