John, I agree with what you are saying, but when you cross black with silver, and then back to silver, some of the modifying genes that make a black bird totally black (or blue as the case may be) usually come along, and I\'m not speaking of E obviously. Ml (melanotic) and Cha (charcoal) are two known examples of dominant modifying genes that most likely would also have to be bred out of the silvers in order to get back to a silvery gray female Ameaucana. I\'m fairly certain there may be other unknown modifying genes that come into play as well. I originally made the blue cross in the attempt to eliminate shafting (didn\'t really work) and to help lighten up the shade of silvery gray in the females. So the blue silvers were really a byproduct of an attempt to improve my silvers.