THE BOOK OF POULTRY. 



of breeding. When Mr. Beldon wrote in 1870, 

 cockerels were selected by breeders and accepted 

 by the judges with distinct bar upon the wing, 

 and dark secondary feathers, and such cockerels 

 would produce pullets of the pencilling then 

 deemed satisfactory. But purer white bodies 

 were desired for the cockerels, along with finer 

 pencilling for the pullets ; and the two were 

 incompatible. Some good breeders had always 

 bred from two pens, and these found that their 



pullets will sometimes be nearly white, but more 

 often coarsely and rather lightly marked over 

 with a coarse marking somewhat like the breast- 

 feather of Fig. 128. 



With pullets another course is pursued. The 

 cockerels from the best specimens were found to 

 have the most of the coarse pencilling on the 

 inside web of the wing-coverts. By selecting 

 for this, cockerels were soon produced con- 

 siderably pencilled on the wing, and with 



Fig. 127. — Feathers of Pencilled Pullets, igcxj. 



best cockerels bred pullets with more white 

 ground, and coarse marking : in fact pullets 

 could only be bred at all from the same pen as 

 cockerels, while the coarser marking of Fig. 128 

 was accepted as the standard. Sometimes 

 pullets almost white came from these pens, and 

 these often bred good cockerels if black in tail. 

 Cockerels are now therefore bred always in that 

 way ; an exhibition bird naturally good in comb 

 and ear-lobes, and silvery in colour, being mated 

 with pullets or hens of the same strain, the blood 

 being the main thing, as without it birds which 

 look just like them may be worthless. These 



touches of pencilling on the body, with almost 

 black tails. Still breeding for finer pencilling 

 alone, cockerels were bred, exactly as in the 

 spangled breeds, with hen-feathered tails, and 

 pencilled all over exactly like the pullets, from 

 the top of the breast to the tip of the tail. It is 

 rather curious also, that in thus following up 

 marking alone, the ear-lobes often came reddish 

 and the heads coarse, precisely as in the Lan- 

 cashire Mooneys. Pullets are now always bred 

 in this way, mating the best that can be got, 

 with fine pencilling, and a cock or cockerel bred 

 from the same strain. If he be of the hen- 



