The extreme importance, or rather necessity, of the desired character in the above case, namely, pale-blueness, being present though in a latent state in the female, so that the male offspring should not be deteriorated, will be best appreciated as follows: the male of Sœmmerring’s pheasant has a tail thirty-seven inches in length, whilst that of the female is only eight inches; the tail of the male common pheasant is about twenty inches, and that of the female twelve inches long. Now if the female Sœmmerring pheasant with her _short_ tail were crossed with the male common pheasant, there can be no doubt that the male hybrid offspring would have a much _longer_ tail than that of the pure offspring of the common pheasant. On the other hand, if the female common pheasant, with her tail nearly _twice as long_ as that of the female Sœmmerring pheasant, were crossed with the male of the latter, the male hybrid offspring would have a much _shorter_ tail than that of the pure offspring of Sœmmerring’s pheasant.[200] Our fancier, in order to make his new breed with the males of a decided pale-blue tint, and the females unchanged, would have to continue selecting the males during many generations; and each stage of paleness would have to be fixed in the males, and rendered latent in the females. The task would be an extremely difficult one, and has never been tried, but might possibly succeed. The chief obstacle would be the early and complete loss of the pale-blue tint, from the necessity of reiterated crosses with the slaty female, the latter not having at first any _latent_ tendency to produce pale-blue offspring.