492 



THE BOOK OF POULTRY. 



Cochin type, and that the Emu Cochin should 

 be the one breed which should sometimes 

 present the silky type of plumage. 



No one has probably known and bred 

 Silkies so long as the Rev. R. S. Woodgate, 

 of Pembury Hall, Kent, who in 1900 con- 

 tributed the following notes, and who was a 

 prominent exhibitor even before the first edition 

 of the Illustraled Book of Poultry was pub- 

 lished. 



" I cannot but remark how pleased I am to 

 write these notes, as I did in the original 



{Exhibited by Mr 



Silkie Hen and Cock. 

 . Campbell, First and Challenge Cup. Crystal Palace, 1909. Photograph 

 by Hardee, Chislehurst.) 



edition long ago of Mr. Wright's Illustrated 

 Book of Poidtry. I have been acquainted with 

 this most interesting breed for forty years. A 

 Captain Finch brought home a pair about 

 i860, which, to my juvenile recollection, were 

 3S beautiful as any now on view. I have since 

 endeavoured to find out where they came from, 

 as the captain's widow still lives here (aged 

 ninety-two), but could only glean that it was 

 believed that China was their home. Again 

 in i86g I was introduced to a Miss Hawker, 

 an old lady, whose garden was filled with 

 Silkies, bad, good, and indifferent. She told 



me that an eminent officer in the Navy (lier 

 brother) had brought them home for her, but 

 again she did not know where from: she 

 thought Japan. I obtained some half a dozen 

 birds from her, and with them made a strain 

 which has held its own until the present day. 

 With much trouble a great fancier of this 

 variety has been trying to find if the Silkies 

 are found in Japan. He sent photographs of 

 birds to see if they could be traced, but no 

 one seemed to know the variety. I have quite 

 recently had here, however, a gentleman who 

 had spent twenty-seven years 

 in Japan, and who told me 

 that he had seen there fowls 

 similar to those in my runs ; 

 and upon his sending photo- 

 graphs which I gave him to 

 another friend who had lived 

 some years there, the latter 

 wrote : ' I have seen the fowls 

 you mention in Yokohama and 

 neighbourhood, but do not re- 

 collect them at Kobe or Naga- 

 saki.' It seems therefore 

 provable that the popular name 

 of ' Japanese Silkies ' is fairly 

 justified. 



" It is surprising to notice 

 the small difference that there 

 is in the Silkie of thirty years 

 ago and that of the present 

 day. Perhaps the head-points 

 are not now quite as good as 

 they were then, for I remember 

 them three decades ago as 

 being most exquisite, with the 

 turquoise lobes, the perfect 

 crests, and small mulberry 

 combs, with an indentation in 

 them which, to my mind, the 

 male bird certainly should 

 possess ; but the present-day 

 birds are rather shorter in the 

 legs and have more silk on the 

 wings, which I look upon as a great improve- 

 ment so far as it goes. We must not, however, 

 forget that Silkies should have tails. I am 

 afraid that many are now sliding into a pure 

 Cochin or Pekin Bantam-shaped bird. This 

 should not be. The tips of the tail feathers, 

 as silky as possible, should protrude beyond 

 as dense a mass of silk as is possible. The 

 colour in cocks I do not think on the whole 

 has improved. I know, naturally, how all 

 white birds go to yellow, more or less "in the 

 summer, but there does not seem the purity 

 all round that there was some years ago. It 



