Italy was the original home of the Leghorn, but the first specimens of the white variety reached this country from America around 1870, and of the brown two years or so later. These early specimens weighed not more than 1.6 kg (31 lb) each, but our breeders started 2 to increase the body weight of the whites by crossing the Minorca and Malay, until the birds were produced well up to the weights of the heavy breeds. In the postwar years, the utility and commercial breeders established a type of their own, and that is the one which is now favoured. In commercial circles the white Leghorn has figured prominently in the establishment of high egg-producing hybrids.