November
8, 1985
Dear
Mr Plant:
I
am very sorry about the extremely long delay in writing back to you. Things
seem to get misplaced in the summer and I only recently came across your
letter of last summer. I wish to thank you for the booklet
The origin evolution, history and distribution of the domestic fowl. Part 2
chicken bone recoveries. I read it with interest and commend you on
digging out this information.
As
to the origin of the Araucana fowl, I have no pet theories of my own. I have
read what others have guessed at, but as you say it is still a hit of a
mystery, it is truly a unique bird. I am not aware of any other breed that has
ear-tufts and lays the blue egg. Most breed traits are fairly wide spread, but
these two are not. Most interesting. Also the rumplessness trait, although not
exclusively Araucana, is not very wide spread. This breed is truly an
interesting mystery.
As
for the linkage between pea comb and blue shell color, I sometimes think that
people try to make too much of this. When we say that these two traits are
linked, we are only saying that they are located on the same chromosome and in
this particular case they are very close together (see chromosome 1 on page 51
in the Registry). The pea gene might have been introduced into South America
as you suggest or it may have mutated there as you suggest the blue gene did.
They are both dominant genes and thus would be easy to select for once they
had appeared. You mentioned one of my papers on the Araucana breed. We have
done quite a bit with this breed and thus I am sending you a complete set of
papers on this work for your interest under separate cover.
Your
comment about the FORWARD in Bulletin 469 was appreciated and most
particularly by its author, my wife. She wrote that several editions ago and I
have used it ever since. We would be most happy to have you use it in your
Club’s Newsletter. Good luck in
your breeding efforts and once again I am sorry about the delay in answering
your letter.
Sincerely
yours,
Ralph
G.Somes, Jr.
Professor of Nutritional Sciences