CONTENDING TYPES IN BRAHMAS. 



26; 



2," of 1 87 1. He was the son of a bird even 

 more slim and agile than himself, of a strain 

 (Mr. W. Hargreaves, of Bacup) renowned for 

 breeding beautiful cockerels, many of which were 

 of course of much more orthodox sort, or they 

 would not have been successful. This one of 

 his progeny won second prize at Bristol in a 

 class of forty, the largest class of Brahma 

 cockerels ever exhibited up to that time, and 

 was in his turn the sire of the cup-winner at the 

 Crystal Palace and Birmingham in 1872. 

 Artists who could draw fowls were scarce in 

 those days, and his head is not " fine " enough ; 

 but the contour is true, and the bird appears 

 " alive " in the drawing. Looking at it critically, 

 one sees the same greater proportionate length 

 of body ; but the most striking feature, next to 

 the full and sweeping tail, is the magnificent 

 " balance " of the bird, and the supple vigour of 

 his attitude. He flew to the top of a six-foot 

 fence with ease; in fighting struck with the 

 spur like a game cock ; and it would have been 

 dangerous for any stranger to touch one of his 

 hens. Mr. Teebay, who judged at Bristol, told 

 us that though not of the customary style for 

 exhibition, he also knew that type of bird well, 

 as appearing from time to time in the Dark 

 Brahma ; and we have also seen the same 

 general pattern, with less tail, but the same 

 grand sweep of outline, active lissomeness, and 

 noble carriage, in the yards of Lady Gwydr 

 and others, though of course the slimmest and 

 longest-tailed ones were kept at home as not 

 likely to find favour with the judges. 



It is difficult now not to regret that even 

 this more pronounced development of the Indian 

 type, rather than the Chinese, had not been 

 encouraged ; for it was full of good qualities 

 which the Chinese type does not possess. The 

 skin was thin and pinky-white ; the pullets were 

 often magnificent layers, and showed only 

 moderate broodiness at long intervals ; the breast 

 was long and deep, so that the fowl on the 

 table looked like a small turkey. Such was the 

 more Indian type of the original Brahma fowl ; 

 but, in spite of the early lesson presented by the 

 question of comb, no one properly understood 

 then the significance of the choice to be made 

 between the mixed components in its blood. 

 For the struggle came out plainly in that 

 question of comb. Some chickens had single- 

 combs, some pea-combs, and either could 

 have been bred with ease amongst English 

 stock ; in America there were strains which 

 chiefly bred one or the other, owing to the 

 rivalry of Bennett and Burnham. In this point 

 the Indian feature was fixed without the 

 slightest difficulty, and there is little doubt that 



fixing it had some influence in a tendency 

 towards other features of the Indian model ; 

 but in regard to Brahmas, English judging has 

 been unfortunately more erratic than in the case 

 of almost any other breed. For years any 

 approach to a covered hock was so persistently 

 disqualified, that shanks almost as bare as 

 present-day Langshans became the rule. When 

 breeders had at last got good leg-feather to be 



accepted, the two leading judges began giving 

 prizes to pullets which only weighed about 6 lbs. 

 each, and were narrow weeds with nothing 

 Brahma about them except pea-combs, for a 

 new style of broad and very rich marking ; none 

 of these birds ever reappeared as hens, and their 

 encouragement did much harm in many yards. 

 Then the awards went, in flat contradiction of 

 this, to a very silvery pencilling, usually found 

 with white heads, which was exhibited (chiefly 

 by one exhibitor, who it was notorious had 

 his stock from one of the judges) in birds larger 

 than the preceding, but still narrow and weedy 

 in build, and short of leg-feather as those also 

 had been. Finally, and probably in sheer 

 reaction from this fashion, the pendulum swung 

 right over from it to breadth of body and loose 

 plumage, and tremendous leg-feather (with 



