A set of eight 'Dead Books' from experiments in poultry breeding by William Bateson and Reginald Punnett conducted between 1901 and 1910. The notebooks form a parallel series to the main poultry notebook series . They record eggs which were addled, sterile or failed to hatch, and also chicks which hatched but died shortly afterwards. These are referenced back to the cross number in the main series of poultry notebooks. The records 'in shell' may refer to chicks which had formed in an egg but had failed to hatch for some reason.

This archive documents historical animal experimentation, which some people may find distressing.