BURNHAM ON PURE BREEDS. 



261 



reason had to be given, and this was the one 

 given : it appears rather curious in the light of 

 the following-, from his own pen {Hen Fever, 

 p. 274). A gentleman wrote him in these 

 words : — 



I have read much on this subject of poultry, and 

 I want to begin right, you perceive. I have made up 

 my mind that there are not so many variities. of fowls 

 extant as many breeders describe. I am satisfied that 

 these domestic birds hail originally from China, and 

 that all of them are of one blood. What is your 

 opinion ? 



Write me your views, please, and let me know if you 

 can furnish me with what I seek, upon honour, bearing 

 in mind that I am ready to pay your price, whatever it 

 may be, but that I want only pure-blooded stock. 



What followed is best described in his own 

 words : — 



I informed my correspondent that I agreed with him 

 in the ideas he had advanced, precisely (I usually did 

 agree with such gentlemen), and I entertained no doubt 

 that he was entirely correct in his views as to the origin 

 of domestic fowls, of which he evidently knew so much. 

 (This helped me amazingly.) I pointed out to him the 

 distinction that existed (without a difference) between a 

 " Shanghae " and a " Cochin China," and finally con- 

 cluded my learned and H/iselfish appeal by hinting (barely 

 hinting) to him that I felt certain he was the best judge 

 of the facts in the case, and I would only suggest that, so 

 far as my e.xperience went, there were in reality but ten 

 varieties of pure-hred fowls known to ornithologists (I 

 was one of this latter class), and that these ten varieties 

 were the Cochins, the White, Grey, Dominique, Buff, 

 Yellow, Red, Brown, Bronze, and Black Shanghaes — and 

 these were the only kinds I ever bred. 



As to their purity of blood, I could only say that 

 I imported the original stock myself, and "enclosed" 

 he had their portraits, to which I referred with pride 

 and confidence and pleasure, etc. etc. 



He then quotes the letter he received m 

 reply, of which it is only necessary to state 

 that it ordered six chickens of each of the 

 varieties he had named. The fulfilment of the 

 order he relates as follows : — 



I sent this anxious purchaser sixty chickens, at ten 

 dollars each (cheap enough, to be sure), in accordance 

 with his directions, and he was delighted with them. I 

 do not now entertain a shadow of doubt that every one 

 of those ten " different varieties " was bred from white 

 hens and a black cock, one of the ordinary " Shanghae " 

 tribe. 



That was not quite the last, however, of this 

 transaction. In the renewed controversy of 

 1874 an American fancier roundly taxed Mr. 

 Burnham with the affair : and he might possibly 

 have rejoined that he wrote it to amuse, or 

 invented it, or exaggerated it. He did nothing 

 of that kind, but replied as follows : — 



I said I had no doubt of this. I have not now. 

 Those white, light-coloured, and black imported 

 Shanghaes of mine produced all sorts of colours in my 

 hands— in breeding. Could I help that ? I imported 

 the birds at heavy cost, and did the best I could with 



them. In those years we had not got this thing 

 down so fine as you and I have in these later days of 

 improvement in poultry-raising. Where exists the 

 harm or the deceit in this confession, pray? I sent 

 my customers what they wanted to buy ; and bred all 

 colours very frequently from the very same birds, in 

 those days, as everyone else did. And we did not 

 know any better. Bless you, Mr. Athole, this was 

 but the commonest result everywhere. It did not 

 change the purity of the bloml, but simply the colour. 



If this were so, he surely might have swal- 

 lowed the Brahma also, name and all, and 

 admitted one more " pure breed." And it 

 would be also somewhat like a miracle that if 

 his " Shanghaes" bred like that, just one lot of 

 birds which he says were bred from these same 

 Shanghaes should have bred with the uniformity 

 of colour and purity of race which he too 

 always claimed for this one variety, the Brahma. 

 But it was not so. The very same book re- 

 cords a conversation between himself and Dr. 

 Bennett, who had been relating his production 

 of " new varieties " by crossing ; and that he 

 clearly pointed out to the doctor how impossible 

 it was to avoid chance results from mixing 

 varieties. He did know better, and was fully 

 aware of the results of crossing colours, and had 

 described these birds as " pure bred," knowing 

 they were not so ; and he had further described 

 Cochins as dijfereut from Shanghaes, yet sent 

 Cochins from the same stock. Honest breeders 

 found differences, and curious results, in the 

 produce of early Cochins, as recorded in the 

 preceding chapter, but they did not find their 

 stock vary in this extraordinary way : Sturgeon 

 and Punchard, and Fairlic, and others did not 

 breed " all " colours from the same stock : but 

 then neither did they advertise " ten varieties 

 of pure-bred fowls " all from the same, nor mate 

 white with black in order to produce them. 



To go back however to the Fitchburg Show ; 

 so far from the Burnham stock being either 

 the first, or the best, we have it above under his 

 own hand that " no one thought well " of either 

 Dr. Bennett's original cross-made birds, or of his 

 own shown by Mr. George ; but that the third 

 stock — Mr. Hatch's — which came from Cornish, 

 "sold readily" at good prices, and at once 

 created an active demand for " Grey Chitta- 

 gongs," under which name they were entered. 

 It is also proved that it was seeing this Hatch 

 stock, and its success, that gave Burnham the 

 idea of himself breeding Greys, which he only 

 began after seeing them at that show ; that he 

 then bred them and sold them in imitation of 

 the Chamberlain strain ; but that when he 

 wanted really fine birds to send to the Queen, 

 he had recourse to a stock of that strain itself in 

 the possession of Mr. Smith, of Rhode Island. 



