BREEDING SILVER-SPANGLED HAMBURGHS 



433 



Mooney hens, and of course the two varieties 

 had to be kept and bred separately. 



Each variety however possessed great defects: 

 in the Mooney hens the combs were coarse and 

 the ear-lobes red ; while in the Yorkshire cocks 

 the neck, back, saddle-hackles, and shoulders 

 were almost white, and the breast-marking very 

 poor in comparison. The next step was to 

 cross Mooney cocks with Yorkshire hens, which 

 produced cockerels with fairly clear spangled 

 tails, smarter combs, and white ear-lobes, yet 

 with better spangling. This system lasted many 

 years, but by degrees the repeated crossing pro- 

 duced a great deal of really amalgamated blood, 

 and the pure old Yorkshire Pheasant practically 

 disappeared, while a considerable portion of 

 Yorkshire blood crept into many, if not most, 

 of the Mooney strains. When Mr. Beldon wrote 

 in 1870, this had gone so far, that the system he 

 himself practised and recommended was to select 

 an exhibition cockerel with as much marking on 

 back and saddle as possible (never found in the 

 old Yorkshire Pheasant pure) and put him with 

 hens heavily spangled, but with good combs and 

 ear-lobes. Blood was so mixed at that period, 

 that much mating was very speculative : the 

 male show bird, as deep in colour as possible, 

 was to be mated with the best hens obtainable, 

 and the result awaited. If good, the breeder 

 kept that pen as long as it would breed : if dis- 

 appointing, he tried another cock. A pen would 

 often breed good cockerels but only middling 

 pullets : because although good marking had 

 been obtained on the back and saddle of 

 the exhibition cock, superseding the white of the 

 old Yorkshire, his neck-hackle was still de- 

 manded white, which was bad for pullet-breeding; 

 hence, hens were in practice bred chiefly from 

 pens containing more Mooney blood, though 

 their breeding was perhaps not exactly known. 



Mr. Beldon's opinion at that time, often ex- 

 pressed to us, was that the amalgamation was 

 likely to go further still, and produce yet deeper 

 colour in the cocks, until only one male would 

 be generally required, which might however 

 probably breed the best pullets from the females 

 with most Mooney blood. One of these antici- 

 pations was fulfilled ; the exhibition cock having 

 now finer and better spangles, the hackle being 

 well ticked, and the saddle more heavily than 

 before, so far making the bird a better pullet- 

 breeder. Yet curiously enough, the practice of 

 breeding Mooneys from the hen-tailed cocks 

 for pullets, has not only held its ground (the 

 oldest breeders never having abandoned it), but 

 the supposed pure Mooney is more bred than 

 ever. The breeder now seeks for his cockerel- 

 breeding pen an exhibition bird of pure white 



colour, heavily ticked in hackles, and well 

 spangled, and with special regard to good comb 

 and ear-lobes ; and mates him with hens bred 

 from the same cock-breeding strain, and so 

 heavily spangled (i.e. in their natural state) as 

 to be almost black-breasted. These hens are 

 specially selected in regard to neat heads and 

 good ear-lobes. For pullets, on the other hand, 

 Mooneys, or the birds so-called, are chosen on 

 both sides. Both se.xes in these Mooneys are 

 very large, much larger than the cock-breeding 

 strains, but coarse in heads and combs, and 

 more or less red in ear-lobes : these faults are 

 tolerated for the sake of the spangling, which 

 is glossy green. The hen is naturally very 

 much darker than she is exhibited (see 

 page 235) and as a rule the darker ones breed 

 the best stock : they must be spangled up to 

 the throat and not go off white just under it. 



This is the present and general method of 

 breeding, but not quite universal, and Mr. 

 C. Holt * advised mating a heavily-marked 

 exhibition cock with two cock-breeding and two 

 Mooney hens, with a view to breeding both 

 sexes. He was a great deal criticised for this 

 advice, and it was not altogether a valid reply 

 to state that with a pullet produced by such a 

 cock and a crack Mooney hen he had beaten 

 all the old Hamburgh breeders at Silsden, 

 since that was in 1884, and breeding has 

 perceptibly changed even since then : still the 

 coincidence of the advice and experience with 

 Mr. Beldon's should have some weight. 



The question is not really so simple as some 

 suppose, and will be best considered in connection 

 with that of the spangling itself The old Lan- 

 cashire breeders sought as large and 

 Hamburgh as round spangles as possible, and 

 Spangling. got them so large at last that the 

 birds literally could not be shown 

 without extensive thinning out, as was under- 

 stood by all, and never then objected to. There 

 has been some little reaction against that, and 

 the present Standard qualifies it by the words, 

 " never so large as to overlap," but this is more 

 nominal than real, and birds have to be thinned 

 out still. There is, however, some perceptible 

 change, as will be seen by comparing A in Fig. 

 125, drawn from one of Mr. Beldon's feathers 

 (from the back) in 1870, with B, from the same 

 part of one of the "crack" hens of 1900. The 

 spangle is perceptibly smaller, though probably 

 (owing to greater proportion of Mooney blood) 

 from a larger bird. Nothing has therefore been 

 gained, as many suppose, in size of spangling by 

 going back more to the Mooney, while the ear- 

 lobes have lost considerably. Asalready observed, 



* " Hamburghs Up-to-date " : Feathered World Office. 



