I am not the one stating "facts" about the history of this bird. You say that the original birds had single combs. Ok I am not saying that is wrong. I am asking you to show me where you found that information. The proof you showed was not proof and instead of showing how you know that the original birds had single combs you get hostile. It clearly stated that the original birds where bred to a hamburg who do have rose combs. That is where I assume these descendants would have gotten it. I do not see where he stated what type of comb the original birds had or if they had the same type. You are the one claiming to be the expert not I. The fact that he only used 4 bird for his experiment does lead one to believe that he was picking very specific possibly recessive traits. The fact that there is only a 3% chance of getting that comb does not disprove anything. Birds are mature in 6 months. In a three year period he had several generations to pick from. Breeding birds was what he did.
Here is a link to someone who did have a rumpless Legbar.
http://forums.thepoultrykeeper.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=25273
The birds R.C. Punnett used were collected by Clarence Elliott. Here is a link to a biography about him.
http://plants.jstor.org/person/bm000116053
It says:
"Three blue egg laying Araucana hens he brought back from Patagonia were used by R.C. Punnett at Cambridge University in genetic studies of poultry. Descendants of these breeding experiments are now used to produce pastel coloured eggs for the plate."
Here is another history of the Legbars.
http://blue-eggs.co.uk/#/history-of-cream-legbars/4554275782
"These were bred to the line of blue laying hens that Professor Punnett's experimental matings had produced, and in time a crested, blue egg laying, autosexing breed was selected out and named the Crested Cream Legbar - the crest being a the tuft of feathers on the crest of the head behind the comb a feature derived from the South American blood."
"Some years later the Chilean blue egg laying fowl of the Araucana Indians were introduced into both USA and Britain and became standardized as Araucana which lays a blue or turquoise green coloured egg."
Here is another site.
https://www.omlet.co.uk/breeds/chickens/cream+legbar/
"The Cream Legbar is a crested chicken which is a true autosexing breed which means that you can tell the sex of the chicks by the colour of the feathers. It is an old pure breed which originated in the 1930s as a cross between Brown Leghorns and Barred Rock with some Araucana blood in them."
Here is another link.
http://www.legbarsofbroadway.co.uk/index.php/our-hens/the-origins/
"The blue egg made its debut at Cambridge University in 1929, when Prof. R. Punnett acquired three mongrel Chilean hens (Araucanas) which laid blue and green eggs, from explorer and botanist, Clarence Elliott, whose family still live in the Cotswolds. It would be, however, another ten years before Punnett would use the offspring of these original blue egg layers to make the Cream Legbar during his experiments on producing auto-sexing chickens."
Here is another.
http://www.rarepoultrybreedersassociation.com/breeds-in-focus.html
"The Legbar is also quite remarkable among autosexing breeds in that it is standardised in three colour varieties - gold, silver and cream - and it is acknowledged that the cream was not developed in the same manner as the other two varieties, there being an infusion of Araucana blood in this variety, which gives it a crest, and in its country of origin, lays a blue, green or olive egg."
Here is the history of the Araucana.
http://www.cashsblueeggs.com/araucanahistory.htm
"The Araucana chickens originated in an area of Chile ruled by the Araucana indians. The Araucana chicken is a combination of two distinct breeds. The Collonocas, and the Quetros. The "Collonocas" laid blue eggs and were rumpless. The "Quetros", had tufts a tail and laid brown eggs. Over time a combination of these two breeds created the Araucana, a breed that is rumpless, tufted, and lays blue eggs."
It seems to me that every where I look the general consensus is that the birds that R.C. Punnett used and the Araucana both got their blue eggs from the same Chilean birds raised by the local tribes. That would be the Collonocas. It laid blue eggs and was rumples. The Cream Legbar got its egg color and crest from these Chilean mongrels. So no it was not an Araucana, but the ancestor to the Araucana. I don't see anyone else claiming that the bird used were some other now extinct undocumented breed of chicken that also laid colored eggs. The birds he used were not pure Collonocas but as he stated they were mongrels who did not look like each other. What type of combs these mongrels had and if they had the same type of comb is unknown as R.C. Punnett does not seem to have passed that information on.
