The effect of foreign skin on feather pattern in the common fowl (Gallus domesticus).

Experiments with skin grafting in the fowl have shown that a large measure of success is obtainable by means of a very simple technique. When a graft is placed on the back of a newly hatched chick the feathers subsequently developed conform very strictly in color and pattern to the type characteristic of the breed from which the graft was derived, except that occasionally some abnormally colored feathers are produced. These feathers are found to belong to two classes, one of which can be duplicated in unoperated birds, while the other is distinctive and represents a combination of the characteristics of donor and host. The data at hand do not justify anything more than a tentative hypothesis as to the exact mode of interaction in this case, but the fact that such an interaction does occur places the bird in line with some of the lower forms, and opens a new field for the study of regulatory processes in warm blooded animals.