MB 



JOUBNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



[ May 2, 1867. 



18 needless to say ; bnt I hope such instruments will never b^ 

 nsed generally, eave as an admitted infamy upon the Brahma 

 fowls. 



Lastly, with regard to colour, I must say a few words in 

 reply to Mr. Lacy. I may be mistaken, but there appears to 

 be atone of complaint about bis letter which I cannot account 

 for, as I have never depreciated either his views or his birds. 

 He seems to imply that if people attend to my remarks (cer- 

 tainly mine have been very lengthy), we shall soon deteriorate 

 Brahmas to " wretched mongrels;" whereas my endeavour has 

 been to point out the evil, not only of crosses from different 

 breeds, but even of differently-coloured strains ; and it is some- 

 what singular that I have a note from the most practical 

 breeder of Brnbmas in the three kingdoms, remarking that if 

 my cautions were attended to " we should 7iot have so many 

 mongrels as we see now." 



Mr. Lacy says I "will have it'' there are two schools of 

 colour, and have " been pleased " to attach his name to one of 

 them, and "hinted broadly " that he leans to a brown shade. 

 I hinted at more than two schools ; but if Mr. Fowler's letter, 

 compared with his, does not prove that there are such two 

 schools, I confess I am hopeless to prove it myself. He ad- 

 mits that he does prefer the brown tint : of what, then, does 

 he complain ? for I made no other assertion regarding him, 

 and never implied that his birds were on that account worse 

 than others ; and I placed him at the head of the " school " to 

 which he belongs, just as I should have placed some one else, 

 had he, instead of Mr. Lacy, taken in succession the highest 

 honours at our leading show. He appears, in fact, to have 

 misunderstood me as condemning his views, which I assure 

 him I had no thought of doing. I have always regarded this 

 question as one simply of individual preference, just as one 

 man prefers Buff' Cochins and another Partridge, and I know 

 that either the brown or the clear colour in Brahmas can be, 

 and has been, produced simply by careful selection. Mr. Lacy 

 seems to forget that when Mr. J. K. Fowler affirmed his fa- 

 vourite brown colour to be introduced " within the last few 

 years by a cross with the Partridge Cochin," I felt compelled 

 to contradict him ; as I feel now compelled to question also the 

 statements he has himself made ; since he, like Mr. Fowler, is 

 not content with simply defending his own favourite colour, 

 but maintains that the other is " abortive " and wrong. Such 

 a view, from either side, I feel it necessary, in justice to breeders 

 generally, to controvert. 



Mr. Lacy argues that the brown is " the correct and only 

 colour " because the down on the chick's back is brown. To 

 refute this it would be sufficient to remark that if the argument 

 be sound, all the down on the body, except the neck and head, 

 ought to be brown also ; but as if to show the utter fallacy of 

 such reasoning, it is singular that the heads of many Brahma 

 chicks are darkest and brownest of all, whilst they change 

 afterwards to white in the cocks, and light silvery-grey in 

 the hens. 



With regard to Mr. Teebay, I have incidentally recorded my 

 own admiration of the rich colour he used to show, and I am 

 well acquainted with his views upon the subject, but did not 

 feel it right or in good taste to give them, as he is not at 

 present an exhibitor. I can assure Mr. Lacy that these views 

 by no means coincide with his own, and since he has men- 

 tioned Mr. Teebay's name, I must remark that the dark colour 

 he showed was a very different tint from that he admires. 

 Not to mention minor points, I will just say, that whilst the 

 pencillings or dark markings themselves in Mr. Lacy's birds 

 are usually very dark brown, in Mr. Teebay's they were a rich 

 black, far denser and more lustrous than any now seen. With 

 respect to Mr. Boyle's exhibiting hens as brown as his own, I, 

 of course, spoke of the general colour each gentleman showed. 

 Pens are sometimes selected to suit the known preference of 

 particular judges ; and it is a little singular, that the very last 

 pair of pullets I have seen exhibited by Mr. Lacy were of that 

 identical "abortive" silver-grey colour he professes to con- 

 demn. His pullet at Whitehaven was the same. 



Finally, in saying that such silver-grey pullets always moult 

 brown, that those who breed them will obtain small size, light 

 breasts, heads and necks white halfway down, and bad feather- 

 ing — in all these Mr. Lacy is wrong in point of fact. A friend 

 of mine has juat purchased from Mr. Boyle, at a high price, a 

 pair of two-year old hens of good size, heavily feathered, 

 splendidly pencilled, and perfectly and absolutely free from 

 brown. I have now in my own possession a hen of the same 

 age from another yard, which is very nearly free from brown, 

 but splendidly pencilled on the breast, and in size the very 



largest — I will not say ever bred — but that I ever saw; and 

 when I say she is larger than his own first-prize hens at 

 Birmingham, he will admit she cannot be very " ."imaU." And 

 finahy, let any one inspect Mr. Ellis's well-known yard and Bay 

 how far such remarks will apply to it. 



I trust I shall not this time be misunderstood, or give offence. 

 My sole object is to contradict the notion that either colour is 

 the " only proper " one for a Brahma, and that the other must 

 be the result of a cross. Both are legitimate, and the result 

 of legitimate and careful selection in breeding. I can admire 

 and see beauty in each, and my opinion is, that the time is 

 nearly come when Brahraas should be again subdivided into 

 three colours, which might be called " Light " (as it is now), 

 " Silver-pencilled," and " Dark or Brown-pencilled." As soon 

 as the number of entries shall justify this, I think there is as 

 much reason f»r the sub-division as in the case of Cochins, 

 and it would end the present strife about the matter ; but 

 meantime I would strongly oppose a pen being either com- 

 mended or condemned on account of its colour, since one 

 has as much right to his fancy as another. I would only insist 

 that each bird should be uniform in tiut, and not as now often 

 seen, contain patches of both. To this end I reiterate my 

 caution, that the indiscriminate crossing of widely different 

 colours will ruin both, and to insure uniformity, that before a 

 cock is purchased the hens of the same yard be found to cor- 

 respond pretty nearly in colour to those already kept. So will 

 either tint be preserved in harmony and perfection. 



With these remarks I conclude my notes on Dark Brahmas, 

 and if I take up the pen again it wiU be concerning another 

 breed. — Nemo. 



PETTED BANTAMS. 



My half dozen Bantams have everythiug their own way. I 

 have given over the garden to them. 'Ihey are lords and 

 ladies of all they survey there. I cannot have flowers ; I can- 

 not have vegetables. To humour my Bantams, I must have 

 nothing but gravel, worms, and insects. If I do not go down 

 every morning and feed them upon the very best shelled wheat 

 they march into the house and peck at my legs. When the 

 snow came on the other day, they left their house, as not being 

 comfortable enough for them, and insisted upon roosting on 

 the backs of my best mahogany chairs in the dining-room. 



The noise they make when any female member of the com- 

 munity lays a ridiculous egg, is dreadful. If I go out and beat 

 them, they only make more noise, and the moment my back is 

 turned, the cocks all set up crowing, iu tuken that they have 

 got the best of me. 



They are the artfuUest cocks and hens. I ever knew. They 

 are aware that I am flattered by their flying up on the window- 

 sill, and rapping with their beaks on the glass to call my at- 

 tention when I am busy writing, and they do it on all occasions, 

 their reward being some chopped meat. They have no ob- 

 jection to their own species, or a handful of canary seed, which 

 they consider a dainty. I even indulge those fowls with black 

 beetles, which I take much trouble to catch for them with 

 elaborate snares in the back kitchen. 



What thought and cruel iogeuuity do I exercise on behalf of 

 those Bantams! I pour some double stout into a deep basin, 

 I place the basin in the back kitchen, I fix a little wooden 

 ladder to the side of the earthenware wall, and then I enshroud 

 the back kitchen in Cimmerian darkness. The beetles lurking 

 in their holes smell the double stout, which they instinctively 

 know to be Barclay & Perkins' best, they creep out cau- 

 tiously, ascend the ladders, and reaching the giddy top of the 

 wall make a false step, and fallinto the seductive but treacherous 

 abyss. But they are not drowned ; such is the refined cruelty 

 of man, that he only puts enough dpuble stout in the abyss to 

 tempt his innocent victims to besottedness. When they recover 

 from the stunning effects of their fall, they think they are in 

 the beetles' heaven, feeding upon the ambrosia of their gods. 

 They wallow in their plentiful cups, and sing roaring songs 

 ■about beetle love and double stout (they call it "rosy wine," 

 of course), and think it will be ever thus ; but artful and cruel 

 man appears in the morning letting in the reflective light, and 

 the unhappy beetles know that they have been deceived. They 

 cry, " Ah ! betrayed," and make a rush to scramble up the 

 wall, but are so drunk that they all tumble down again, and 

 their fate is to be eaten alive in a state of intoxication by those 

 bloated Bantams. Never did Roman emperor enjoy such wild, 

 ruthless, extravagant, luxurious saturnalia as those fowls. — 

 — (All tlie Year Jtuund.} 



