EROIVN LEGHORNS. 



415 



they are yellowish white, or cream colour, which 

 certainly is in greater harmony with the bright 

 yellow legs. The lobes should be rather of the 

 almond shape, that is, pendent, smooth, and 

 resembling a piece of white kid. The breeding 

 for tremendous lobes has been the cause of that 

 unsightly blemish, ' white in face.' 



" Coming to the plumage, the neck should 

 be well furnished with hackle feathers, which 

 fall gracefully on to the back, the colour of 

 these being golden bay, each feather having 

 a fairly broad stripe of black running down the 

 centre, though the shorter feathers near the 

 head and round the throat are without any 

 striping. The feathers on the back are a deep 

 red, almost crimson, this same colour running 

 over the shoulder coverts and wing bows. The 

 wing coverts are a beautiful bluish violet tint, 

 and form a broad, even band across the wing, 

 commonly called the wing-bar. The primary 

 wing feathers are brown, the secondaries being 

 a very deep bay on the outer and black on the 

 inner web, the bay being the only colour seen 

 when the wing is closed. The saddle feathers 

 are a very deep orange-red, some of them hav- 

 ing the black stripe down the centre as in the 

 neck hackle. The breast and thighs a rich 

 glossy black with a slightly greenish hue. This 

 same colour pervades the underparts, though 

 (getting of a less glossy nature near the tail. 

 The tail, which should be carried well up, 

 though not squirrel fashion, is of a rich greenish 

 black all through, being surrounded at the base 

 with grey fluffy feathers, whilst the tail coverts 

 are black edged with brown. Legs long and 

 slender, of a brilliant yellow. 



" The foregoing are the plumage colours 

 of a typical Brown Leghorn adult cock, but 

 these feathers will not be found in young cock- 

 erels when just feathering. The first feathers 

 are nearly always brown, splashed with more 

 or less black, the breast being especially so, and 

 not infrequently the little tail feathers will be mar- 

 gined with grey. As the young birds go through 

 their first change of feathers, the breast and tail 

 assume the metallic black of the adult. Should 

 there be any considerable g,mount of white in 

 the wing, however, the bird may be considered 

 a ' weed ' and not worth keeping, for in nine 

 cases out of ten this white will increase as the 

 bird grows, and is a fault that should not be 

 tolerated. 



" Perhaps there is no more graceful and soft- 

 coloured hen to be found than the Brown Leg- 

 horn ; its elegant, symmetrical outline, covered 

 with the most delicate coloured plumage, the 

 tones of which blend with each other in the 

 most perfect harmony, cannot fail to attract 



admiration from even those who care little 

 for the beauties of nature. To describe the 

 colour points of the hen is somewhat difficult, 

 for the pen cannot really do full justice to 

 the beautiful soft tints that e.xist in the plumage 

 of a typical specimen. 



" The comb of the hen should be large, 

 of fine texture, and evenly serrated. It should 

 rise straight up for a short distance from the 

 head, and then bend gracefully over to one 

 side. The beak should be yellow or horn- 

 colour ; the eyes bright and sparkling ; the 

 lobes white and as large as possible, but fitting 

 more closely to the head than in the case of 

 the cock. The wattles of fine texture, free 

 from folds and nicely rounded. 



" The neck is well arched and abundantly 

 furnished with hackle feathers, the co.our being 

 of a rich yellow or golden tint, with a sharp 

 black stripe running down the centre of each 

 feather. Though the stripe should be fairly broad, 

 the yellow or golden colour should predominate. 

 The tendency of late has been to breed hens 

 with light hackles, and consequently much of 

 the sharp definition of the black has been lost. 

 The colour of the breast should be a salmon-red, 

 the feathers on the throat being of a deeper 

 tint, but these graduate in tone until they 

 mingle with the salmon-red of the breast. 

 The feathers on the under-parts and on the 

 thighs are an ashy grey. The body colour 

 is a soft light brown, clearly and beautifully 

 pencilled with fine black lines, resembling the 

 markings of the partridge. The wings are of 

 the same delicate colour when closed, but when 

 open the inner web is black. The great dififi- 

 culty is to get the wing solid in colour, for 

 many otherwise good hens are disfigured by 

 deep brown-red patches, which arc commonly 

 termed ' rust on wing.' The wing is the 

 home of the chief faults that are to be found 

 in the Brown Leghorn hen, for not only is the 

 rust apparent on the outside, but very often 

 many of the flights will be found to have 

 more or less white on the inner web. A pullet 

 w-ith white in flights may be considered a 

 weed, for in hardly any instance will this 

 diminish with age, but will rather increase with 

 each successive moult. The tail should be 

 carried at a very slight angle, almost upright, 

 the feathers black, some of them being pencilled 

 with light brown, or having a light brown 

 edging on one side. The legs and feet aie 

 bright yellow, free from black spots or scales. 



" To produce Brown Leghorns of standard 

 colours, it is necessary to mate two pens of 

 stock birds, the one for cockerel and the 

 other for pullet breeding, as it is not possible 



