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CHAPTER XXIV. 



DORKINGS AND SUSSEX FOWLS. 



WITH the much greater knowledge and 

 experience of poultry which has been 

 accumulated during half a century since 

 exhibitions have been held, it has become more 

 and more certain that the English Dorking, at 

 least, is one breed which we unmistakably owe 

 to the Roman conquest of Britain. It has been 

 already intimated, on Caesar's authority, that the 

 ancient Britons did not eat fowls at that date ; 

 but the Romans did, and had learnt to select 

 their table fowls with some care ; and the Roman 

 writer Columella describes as the best and most 

 esteemed, a bird with all the essential marks of 

 the Dorking race, which there can be no reason- 

 able doubt that the conquerors carried with! 

 them into Britain, unless they already found it 

 there, which is scarcely likely. Some objection 

 has been made on the score of the colours 

 mentioned by the Roman writer, but with no 

 real ground when it is remembered how variable 

 such a point is ; in fact, he implies that various 

 colours were known, and it is further to be re- 

 marked that one of the most ancient varieties 

 — the Red Dorking — closely resembles that to 

 which he gives most prominence, " red or tawny, 

 with black wings." He describes hens with 

 robust bodies, " square-framed, large and broad- 

 breasted," with large heads, and small upright 

 combs, adding that the " purest " breed are five- 

 clawed, which should be so placed that " no 

 cross spurs " arise — a well-known fault in early 

 exhibition days. The cock is to have the same 

 number of claws, breast broad and muscular, 

 " tail lofty," legs sturdy and not long, but 

 " armed as it were with dangerous spears," 

 another allusion to the extra spurs once so 

 prevalent. All the real essentials of the Dorking 

 are to be found in these details ; and it is in- 

 teresting to see that the fifth toe, in particular, 

 which has been said to be cultivated as a mere 

 exhibition point by the " fanciers," has on the 

 contrary come down to us from the Romans, as 

 the mark of their " best" race of table fowls. 



It is remarkable how closely the Dorking 

 we know to-day has preserved all the main 

 points stated by the old Roman writer. It is 

 still a fowl, or should be, with large broad 



breast, square frame, short legs, and five claws. 

 With us it has become now divided into 

 several distinct varieties, known as the Dark or 

 Coloured, the Red, the Silver-grey, the White, 

 and the Cuckoo Dorking. Some of these pre- 

 sent points of interest in their history. 



The origin of what may be termed the 

 " essence " of the Dorking race has been given 

 above ; but in regard to what has been called 



successively the Grey, or Coloured, 

 °"|*" and more lately named the Dark 



Dark Dorkings. Dorking, there has certainly been 



a great deal of other blood, and 

 considerable transformation, in more recent 

 times. It is practically beyond controversy 

 that this fine race was formed by cross- 

 ing some real Dorking stock upon the large 

 four-toed Surrey fowl. In the earlier years 

 of the nineteenth century the pure (five- 

 toed) Dorking strain appears to have been 

 confined to, and centred in, the rose-combed 

 White Dorking, and perhaps also the single- 

 combed Red Dorking presently described, but 

 which was little known in comparison with the 

 other. In his first edition of 1815, Bonnington 

 Moubray describes the breed as "genuine 

 colour intire white ; chief distinctive mark, five 

 claws upon each foot," and spells the name 

 " Darking." He adds, however, how even at that 

 date claims were made that the true fowls were 

 raised in the Weald of Sussex, Horsham being 

 the chief market for them ; and how those who 

 made this claim maintained that the five claws 

 were " merely fortuitous, and in fact objection- 

 able, and that those so marked are deemed a 

 bastard breed." No evidence can be clearer than 

 that these were mainly the large four-toed 

 Sussex or Surrey fowl, more or less crossed with 

 the five-toed Dorking. In the earlier books 

 upon poultry, and especially in The Poultry Book 

 of Messrs. Wingfield and Johnson, published in 

 1853, it is stated that the Coloured Dorking 

 came with four toes and five toes, and even with 

 six toes ; and the cock figured in the coloured 

 plate, which had won many prizes, had three 

 back toes on one foot. The late Capt. Hornby 



