If there’s one thing which grates, as I read avicultural literature, it’s the constant incorrect use of the expression ‘mutations’ when writing about and describing the various colour varieties in different domesticated species. This is seldom the case when reading about the varieties of other animal species which have been isolated and fixed by specialist breeders. Bird breeders almost alone, it seems, have adopted this sloppy and careless habit.

Why do I detest it so? Simply because it is quite wrong grammatically, logically, and as a matter of fact, to refer to a bird as being a mutation. Individual genes within a bird can and do mutate, and a number of such genes could be described as a group of mutations. However there is no way that a bird itself, nor a group of birds, can be said to mutate nor be accurately described as a mutation or a group of mutations.

All birds, and we too, carry a burden (or a blessing) of mutant genes which give that all important individual identity; as important in everyday life as it is in the development and evolution of every species. That is, a proportion of the genes carried by every individual are mutant variations of the wild type and each is liable to affect the individual organism for good or ill. It is wholly wrong, and in the case of humans deeply offensive, to single out those individuals in which a single gene has brought about some unusual attribute or impairment of function and label them as ‘mutations’.

I live in hope (frail, flickering, almost furtive, though it may be) that offenders will come to see the error of their ways.

Colour Varieties — please!

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