SCOTCH GREY BAi\7AAJS. 



527 



as the birds will roost on the ground, but the 

 houses ought to be raked out every day, else 

 they are virtually spending the night sleeping 

 on an accumulation of dung. Now and again 

 replace the old with fresh clean stuff. The 

 fancier will be well repaid for a little extra 

 trouble over these matters by having the foot- 

 feathering always in exhibition form, which is 

 half the battle when the bird comes to the 

 show-pen. Damp runs, foul houses, and 

 general carelessness spell failure with Booted 

 or other feathered-legged Bantams. 



The Scotch Grey, or, as it is sometimes 

 called, the Cuckoo Bantam, is one of the oldest 

 and most interesting of all the varieties of 

 Bantams, but is naturally more 

 Scotch Grey popular in Scotland than in Eng- 

 Bantams. land. The hen is very docile, a 

 capital layer, and the chicks are 

 fairly hardy and easy to rear. The colour is 

 almost the same as that of the most popular of 

 large breeds — viz. Barred Rocks, so that I have 

 often wondered that the variety has not been 

 even more extensively bred than it has. It 

 reproduces well to type, and requires no great 

 experience to keep up a bird to average form, 

 though if an amateur wants to keep in front of 

 the hottest battle at Sydenham and Bingley 

 Hall, he must be prepared to devote much 

 thought and attention to them. He must also 

 be prepared heroically to suffer chagrin at the 

 way some " reporters " dismiss really good 

 specimens by simply announcing some little 

 fault they have. Good as they are to breed, 

 too, nevertheless white feathers will come in 

 wings, sickle feathers, and other places, and 

 some cockerels have quite a provoking way of 

 throwing these white, and even brown, feathers 

 at the very last moment, when the breeder has 

 just begun to congratulate himself that he has 

 got them into their exhibition suit without. 

 Black or white sickles ; brown saddles ; white 

 flights ! — " there is many a slip 'twixt the cup 

 and lip." 



The ground colour of the Scotch Grey 

 Bantam calls for a remark. Most of the Scotch 

 birds I have seen are too dark, and the barring 

 somewhat indistinct, whereas many English 

 specimens have the reverse fault, and run too 

 light in ground colour, which gives a faded, 

 washed-out look. The happy mean between 

 the two seems to be the desideratum. The 

 ground should be a clear distinct stecl-grcy 

 colour, with close narrow distinct bliick barring ; 

 and this black should extend itself clean across 

 the feather, whereas, in many specimens, we find 

 it more or less as a blot in the centre. In other 



words, the principle of the marking should be 

 pencilling, rather than any tendency to mooning ; 

 a modification of the former, rather than that 

 of the latter. A bird with the latter tendency 

 often does not present much difference from 

 one having the correct marking when in the 

 show pen ; still it is easily distinguishable when 

 the bird is handled, and is wrong. Breeders 

 should therefore be very careful on this point, 

 and choose only such birds for the breeding pen 

 as are correctly marked. They may develop 

 white in tail the second year. In fact, it is 

 rarely we see a two-year cock's tail sound in this 

 respect. Still, if his barring is good, take him in 

 preference to a blotchy-barred bird, whose 

 second year tail may be all right. 



The legs should be fine in bone, and white, 

 free from feathers. Yellow and dark legs should 

 not be tolerated, though spotted legs I do not 

 greatly object to. The deaf-ears will give some 

 trouble to keep up to a good coral red, like 

 comb and face. It is a difficult point, and must 

 be carefully attended to, for Nature in some 

 strains seems determined to assert herself, and 

 let in a certain amount of the objectionable 

 white. It is a curious thing that the black 

 chicks produced from the Greys are more prone 

 to contaminated lobes than the barred ones. 

 Do not be alarmed by a batch of black " Greys," 

 and rush into complaints that you have got 

 cross-breds. We do not want the majority 

 black ; but a fair sprinkling is indicative of good 

 chances for those that are barred : and when no 

 " sweeps " are to be seen in a brood, the Greys 

 are generally too pale and washed-out in colour. 

 Not only will you find that you have black 

 chicks amongst your broods, but they will often 

 come with quite bronzy neck hackles. At 

 present the majority of Scotch Greys are too 

 big and coarse, and want fining down a lot in 

 both size and bone. They also want improving 

 in style and carriage. Sometimes we see the 

 results of attempts to improve these points in 

 birds of a distinct gamey type, short and narrow 

 in feather, and too long in leg. Then there is a 

 type of bird much too long and narrow in back, 

 and, worse still, with squirrel tails. What we 

 want is a short, broad-backed, full-chested, and 

 full-feathered bird, more like the Black Rose- 

 comb ; head erect, and tail flowing and well 

 thrown back. 



Year by year it becomes more evident that 

 the best cockerels and pullets on exhibition 

 have been produced from the same pen. Here 

 is a very great incentive to the breeder of this 

 variety. Every bird from a rightly-mated pen 

 has the same chance, and he can rear double 

 the number of birds on the same ground likely 



