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My thoughts go back many, many, years to Ray Perkins home in upstate Connecticut. Having lived close by, it was my fortune to be Ray's guest for the day. We enjoyed an early morning fly. A short time later, J. Leroy Smith and Bill Pensom arrived for a visit. It was Ray who confronted Bill and Leroy concerning a particular problem Ray had noticed with the birds. It seemed the blue checks, red checks and some selfs had developed a pattern of flying above the kit. These same birds flew much longer, and of course, higher. They became seldom in the roll. Their energies seemed to be channeled to a strong fly. Though I had said nothing, I noticed the same thing in the mornings fly. After searching back through the matings of these birds Ray and Bill concluded that the checks and some selfs in the kits had become too hard in character, an apparent influence derived from breeding these strong character birds, back to back. A short while later, Bill had arranged to import birds of light plumage..