262 



THE BOOK OF POULTRY 



There are many independent testimonies to the 

 effect that Hatch called his birds " Chittagongs " 

 because they were grey and had some resem- 

 blance so far to fowls already known by that 

 name in America, with evident Malay blood in 

 them; but the same testimonies make it clear 

 that these original Chittagongs, or at least their 

 crossed produce, were of an " owl " colour as 

 described, probably what we now know as 

 cuckoo or barred, whilst the Hatch stock was 

 mainly cream-white, with pencilled hackles and 

 black tails. This, with the more detailed proofs 

 elsewhere given of the above facts, settles all 

 questions connected with the early American 

 shows and the Light Brahmas. 



It is not so certain that it equally settles the 

 origin of the Darks ; and the upshot of the con- 

 troversy left us, as stated at the time, rather 



disposed to believe that in regard 



Origin of to them we might have done poor 



ax ra as. g^rriham some injustice, and that 



he really had originated these in 

 his own yard. If more than this cannot be said, 

 the reason is simply that the flat self-contradic- 

 tions of the man absolutely prevent any positive 

 conclusion : it is only possible to grope through 

 a fog, most of which he himself has made. 

 Previous to that controversy and the fresh light 

 it threw on this curious old bit of poultry history, 

 we had always thought that the Lights and the 

 Darks were from the same stock, and Burnham 

 himself has also written, "both the Dark and 

 Light were bred from the same originals, pre- 

 cisely, at first," so that he could not complain 

 of such a conclusion on our part. There is 

 ample evidence, too, of the possibility of this. 

 Miss Watts never crossed her strain, from Dr. 

 Bennett, and assured us that she had bred 

 by selection both Dark and Light ; and Dr. 

 Joseph Hinton, a well-known breeder in 1870, 

 told us how his original strain was Light, but 

 that from a darker (though only medium- 

 coloured) bird bred by Mr. J. K. Fowler he bred 

 a most beautiful dark cock, and hens even 

 darker than were then often seen, the next 

 generation producing his " Champion," a well- 

 known show-bird of those days. There is other 

 evidence of the same fact, but of less definite 

 authenticity ; and to show how recklessly Burn- 

 ham himself has made it impossible to come to 

 any conclusion at all with absolute certainty, he 

 published in America in September, 1874, the 

 statement : " I now say that neither the Dark 

 Brahmas nor the Dark Grey Shanghaes are 

 alluded to in The Hen Fever " ; while at the very 

 same date (since it was published in England in 

 November, 1874) he wrote, contrariwise: "In 

 The Hen Fever I referred to the Grey Shanghaes, 



Light and Dark, which I have bred from 1849 

 to 1874, and which we now call Brahmas." It 

 is further to be noticed, that if any real distinc- 

 tion is to be established between the origin of 

 Darks and Lights, it is necessary to exactly 

 invert Burnham's own statements about both, 

 since he affirms of the first ones shown (Lights) 

 that they were the " Grey Chittagongs," while it 

 was later that, as he affirms, he bred from his 

 " Grey Shanghaes." And yet, in spite of all 

 this — -which it is best to dismiss as simply 

 worthless either way — we do think, upon the 

 whole, that there was a difference, and that 

 Burnham did originate the Darks. Take such 

 a passage as the following : — 



I originated the Bark Brahma fowl in my own yard 

 at Melrose, Mass., Lewis ! . . . The Dark Brahma, 

 or Dark " Grey Shanghae," i% my patent, Mr. Wright. 

 I originated it, in 1S53. I never saw them till that year, 

 but it was the result of a studied experiment of mine ; 

 and I raised a great many of these fine Dark birds in 

 the succeeding years. Look over the records and see 

 if you can find any " Dark Brahmas " spoken of — any- 

 where on earth — until my first splendid trio went out to 

 John Baily, of Mount Street, London, in 1853. And 

 tell me too if, subsequently, at any time before the war, 

 anybody but G. P. Burnham, of the United States, sent 

 to England one single specimen of this Dark variety to 

 any living man. You can't name him, sir ! He doesn't 

 exist. Nobody had that stock but myself in all those 

 years. — China Fowl, p. 163. 



There are several other passages like this; 

 and after a lifetime spent in examining docu- 

 ments, it still appears to us, as it did in 1875, 

 that there is a tone about them rather different 

 from the reckless assertion and abuse of other 

 passages such as are cited above. There seems 

 a ring of real truth, of genuine indignation that 

 something really done had received no recogni- 

 tion. Supposing that to be the case, the truth 

 of the matter does not appear difficult to dis- 

 cover, if once we disregard the maze of Burn- 

 ham's own contradictory statements ; and the 

 secret lies apparently in the birds previously 

 known in America as " Chittagongs." 



These fowls Burnham always admitted that 

 he had from Dr. Kerr, of Philadelphia, as Dr. 

 Bennett had his ; but he always added the state- 

 ment, carelessly adopted by Mr. Tegetmeier, 

 that those birds also came from Shanghae. On 

 this point, however, Dr. Kerr himself is the 

 proper authority, and he states that they came 

 from Calaitta ; in fact, the Indian name alone 

 is sufficient proof of their Indian origin. Now 

 it is remarkable that even recently, direct Indian 

 testimony has been given to fowls resembling 

 the earlier Dark Brahmas being still found in 

 the Chittagong district. The Broad Arrow, a 

 Civil Service journal, reviewing in March, 1874, 

 our monograph on the Brahma Fowl, attributed 



