234 



THE BOOK OF POULTRY. 



subsequently placed before him. It not unfre- 

 quently happens that some gross case of fraud 

 gets " blown upon " by some private informer ; 

 and though the motive for this is far more 

 usually malice than honesty, the public benefits 

 all the same. On the whole, we repeat that 

 things are improving, not deteriorating ; that 

 there is adequate machinery, which only needs 

 to be more freely used ; and that the proper 

 direction for effort is towards the more free use 

 of that machinery, and greater public vigilance, 

 not strong language, however fine and large. 



Reasonable moderation must be also borne 

 in mind. We have already hinted that some 

 trimming was not done altogetlicr from the baser 

 motives. We knew a man who 

 Need of never exhibited, though he sold 



moderation, winners largely to those who did, 

 yet who always removed single 

 foul feathers. The reason he gave was that he 

 " could not bear to see them." There are many 

 who have that instinctive fancier's feeling very 

 strongly, whether or not they act upon it ; we 

 once read in a New England journal, " It is im- 

 possible not to draw a little hard upon a feather, 

 when you know that but for that one your bird 

 would be a perfect beauty." Whoever does not 

 understand that feeling, has never been a true 

 fancier ; hence it is, also, that the best fanciers 

 generally feel a little gentle tolerance for that 

 kind of thing ; the {■A.ncxe.xs passion for perfection 

 in appearance, they know, is partly at the root 

 of it. While no club, or standard, or code of 

 morals can draw any line or make any dis- 

 tinctions — for if even one feather may be 

 removed, surely a second may, and a third, and 

 so on — all the same this minor degree of trim- 

 ming has palliations, and stands on a different 

 practical level from much else ; the White Rock 

 we wrote of above, was just as good and valu- 

 able a bird with that one feather in, as with it 

 out. However, it is needless to discuss this ques- 

 tion beyond pointing out that there is some 

 distinction ; because the abstraction of such rare 

 and stray feathers, of any kind, unless cardinal or 

 key feathers in wings or tail, cannot possibly be 

 detected even by the closest scrutiny, and the 

 propriety of removing any broken or bent small 

 body feather which merely mars the smooth 

 outline, has always been generally acknow- 

 ledged. It may, however, be useful to indicate 

 the chief kinds of more serious fraud, capable 

 of detection, which have been at one time or 

 another recorded. 



Symmetrical and neat comb is a very import- 

 ant point in many breeds ; and when a bird is 

 good otherwise but defective here, the knife or 

 dissecting scissors are often employed to cut 



it into better shape. Side sprigs on single 

 combs are frequently removed by a razor, and 

 we have often seen signs in Minorcas that small 



or ugly spikes or serrations have been 

 Trimming cut into better ones. But it is in 

 Combs. Hamburghs thatoperations on combs 



have been most general, the ends of 

 the little projections being sliced to an even 

 plane, and more extensive cutting off of entire 

 portions practised, in ways that had better not 

 be definitely indicated. We will only say that 

 we have known (for it is remarkable that, being 

 known never to break individual confidence, we 

 have been oftentimes given information freely 

 on these points, and even shown them) several 

 cases in which a large piece of wedge shape has 

 been cut out of the centre of a Hamburgh comb, 

 which was then sewn up so as to draw together 

 and make the whole much smaller ; and we 

 once heard of a horrid case — to this day we 

 hardly know whether to believe it or not — in 

 which one otherwise inferior bird having an ex- 

 quisite comb, while the show bird had a coarse 

 one, both were amputated by a horizontal cut, 

 and the two being at once transposed, were 

 sutured and reunited. Several cases have 

 actually occurred, and been recorded in print, of 

 the judges finding Hamburghs in the pens with 

 long pins or needles through the combs, in order 

 to hold parts in better position, or which may 

 have been inserted to hold cut portions together, 

 and been forgotten. It is needless to declaim 

 about the unbridled rivalry and greed which 

 could perpetrate a cruelty that is nauseating ; 

 unfortunately, Hamburghs are more often 

 victims to it than any other breed. We can 

 only state here that when a comb is cut, the 

 place of the scar covers over with smooth skin, 

 slightly glossy, and this is the chief sign of 

 the operation. If such a case is challenged, the 

 exhibitor usually says that the bird has torn his 

 head in fighting, or wire netting, or something 

 of that sort. But a bird with such signs in 

 suspicious places ought certainly to be refused 

 a prize, even if want of absolute demonstration 

 prevents the judge from going farther. 



Dyed plumage is not so very uncommon, the 

 usual colours being black or buff ; the great 

 boom in buff breeds produced at least half a 



dozen convicted cases in England in 

 Dyeing of twelve months. Tail feathers which 

 Plumage. should be black, but have much 



white in them, are sometimes stained 

 with nitrate of silver, and there was at least one 

 case in which too much white in the foot-feather 

 of a Dark Brahma was treated in the same way. 

 A chemical test is unnecessary here. A tail 

 often passes unnoticed, for, as already said, 



