Okay, I think it is starting to make sense. My mistake was in thinking that all the pattern mutations were located in the same place and that since white can mask a pattern like BS it must be different and located at a different spot than all the others, when it is actually at a different spot than BS but at the same spot as Pied, correct? So in an instance where a visually normal looking bird is crossed with a white bird out of pieds, no pieds can result, and if they do the visually normal looking parent must be the one carrying the pied gene, not the white parent? I'm going to saty far away from Silver at this point, but I am curious about WE am I correct in assuming that it is located at a different spot as well?
So far as is known, the only mutant alleles are White and Pied. All the other mutations are of independent genes. The whole "Whites out of Pieds" thing means nothing, except possibly to differentiate them from "Whites out of Silver Pieds" which would also have White-Eye but look the same as "regular" Whites. Peafowl have two of each autosome (the chromosomes that aren't the sex chromosomes Z and W). Thus a pea can't have more than two versions of any gene. White and Pied are two different mutations of the same gene. A White pea has two copies of the White mutation. Thus it can't also be split to Pied because that would require it having a third copy of that chromosome on which the Pied mutation could be found.
If a White bird is crossed with a "visually normal looking parent" and some Pied offspring result, then the "visually normal looking parent" was actually split to Pied. Visually, being split to Pied might result in only a white feather or two, which can easily be missed. Or it might not show any white at all.
Yes, White-Eye is a mutation of a different gene. We don't know specifically WHERE all these genes are located, but we can infer whether or not they are alleles (different versions of the same gene), linked (different genes on the same chromosome) or completely independent (different genes on different chromosomes) by observing inheritance patterns. For example, no one knows WHERE on the Z chromosome the Purple and Cameo mutations lie, but we INFER that they are there because the inheritance pattern of these mutations follows classic sex-linked inheritance. We know that while they're on the same chromosome they're NOT alleles, because they can be combined and separated again.
One more thing -- the whole "pattern vs color" thing is an odd and arbitrary separation of the mutations. Genetically, it means nothing. Part of the "peafowl dogma" which gets passed around is that peafowl can show multiple pattern mutations, but only one color mutation. I have no idea who came up with this idea, especially considering how this same "rule" is commonly "broken" in so many other species all the time when color mutations are combined. I guess the real difference between "pattern" and "color" is that the former results in areas without pigment, whereas the latter alters the pigment (or feather structure involved in light refraction) itself. But that has nothing to do with how the mutations are inherited, or on which chromosomes the genes are located. And there are peafowl out there today which are homozygous for two (or more) color mutations at the same time, which completely dispels that original dogma.
