262 FOWLS. Chap. VII. 



streaked with dark shades: the chickens of silver-cinnamon 

 Cochins are almost always of a biuT colour. The chickens of the 

 white Game and white Dorking breeds, when held in particular 

 lights, sometimes exhibit (on the authority of Mr. Brent) faint traces 

 of longitudiual stripes. Fowls which are entirely black, namely, 

 Spanish, black Game, black Polish, and black Bantams, display a 

 new character, for their chickens have their breasts and throats 

 more or less white, with sometimes a little white elsewhere. 

 Spanish chickens also, occasionally (Brent), have, where the down 

 was white, their first true feathers tipped for a time with white. 

 The primordially striped character is retained by the chickens of 

 most of the Game sub-breeds (Brent, Dixon) ; by Dorkings ; by the 

 partridge and grouse-coloured sub-breeds of Cochins (Brent), but 

 not, as we have seen, by the sub-breeds; by the pheasant- Malay 

 (Dixon), but apparently not (at which I am much surprised) by 

 other Malays. The following breeds and sub-breeds are barely, or 

 not at all, longitudinally striped: viz., gold and silver pencilled 

 Hamburghs, which can hardly be distinguished from each other 

 (Brent) in the down, both having a few dark spots on the head and 

 rump, with occasionally a longitudinal stripe (Dixon) on the back of 

 the neck. I have seen only one chicken of the silver-spangled 

 Hamburgh, and this was obscurely striped along the back. Gold- 

 spangled Polish chickens (Tegetmeier) are of a warm russet brown ; 

 and silver-spangled Polish chickens are grey, sometimes (Dixon) 

 with dashes of ochre on the head, wings, and breast. Cuckoo and 

 blue-dun fowls (Dixon) are grey in the down. The chickens of 

 Sebright Bantams (Dixon) are uniformly dark brown, whilst those 

 of the brown-breasted red Game Bantam are black, with some white 

 on the throat and breast. From these facts we see that young 

 chickens of the different breeds, and even of the same main breed, 

 differ much in their downy plumage; and, although longitudinal 

 stripes characterise the young of all wild gallinaceous birds, they 

 disappear in several domestic breeds. Perhaps it may be accepted 

 as a general rule that the more the adult plumage differs from that 

 of the adult G. bankiva, the more completely the chickens have 

 lost their stripes. 



With respect to the period of life at which the characters 

 proper to each breed first appear, it is obvious that such 

 structures as additional toes must be formed long before birth. 

 In Polish fowls, the extraordinary protuberance of the anterior 

 part of the skull is well developed before the chickens come 

 out of the egg ; 40 but the crest, which is supported on the 

 protuberance, is at first feebly developed, nor does it attain 



40 As I hear from Mr. Tegetmeier ; crest, see ' Poulti-y Chroni.^e,' vol 

 see also ' Proc. Zoolog. Soc' 1556, p. ii. p. 132. 

 366. On the late development of the 



