Inheritance of the laced plumage pattern of the blue Andalusian bantam

1. Crosses between Blue Andalusian and Gold-Laced Wyandotte bantams were made in an effort to determine the inheritance of the black-laced blue plumage pattern of the former. 2. The laced phenotype of the Gold-Laced Wyandotte had been shown to depend upon homozygosity of the linkage of a eumelanin intensifier, melanotic (Ml), with a pattern gene (Pg) in the presence of eumelanin restrictor, columbian (Co), and the brown (eb) allele at the E-locus; whilst the Blue Andalusian is homozygous for the extended black (E) allele at the E-locus and heterozygous for the eumelanin dilution, blue (Bl). 3. All patterned fowl in the F2 generation were laced, indicating an absence of segregation at the Co, Ml and Pg loci, and therefore that the genotype of the laced plumage pattern of the Blue Andalusian is E/E Bl/bl+ Co/Co (Ml-Pg)/(Ml-Pg).