February W, 1868. 1 



JOURNAL OF HORTICDLTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



143 



favourites at tbe present time. The close form of tail has 

 nothing to do with hardness or closeness of body and hackle 

 feathers in my opinion. To call the Duckwing hens Partridge- 

 coloured would be, indeed, an absurdity, I think. — NEWMAKiiET. 



P.S. — In my description of the cup and prize Brown Red 

 hen, at page 81, I omitted the colour of tail, which should be 

 of a dark blackish brown colour. 



LIGHT AND DARK BRAHMAS. 



" The exception " is said to " prove the rule." The chorus 

 of just dissatisfaction at the treatment of the Light Brahmas 

 is interrupted by a solitary voice, raised by one who has left 

 his old love, the Light variety, for its rival, and who is well 

 contented with the present ri'utme under which the cup in- 

 variably goes to the Dark Brahmas. 



" Y. B. A. Z." is a doughty champion, and one may well 

 admire his pluck as, wearing the honourable scars of so many 

 combats, and dealing, as he has done, with such a variety of 

 subjects, he places lance in rest for a tilt at the Light Brahmas. 

 Having expressed, through your kindness, my views at some 

 length, and seeing no reason to change them — being, moreover, 

 fully convinced of the justice and ultimate success of the 

 cause of the Light Brahmas, I would not trouble you again 

 were it not that I feel it courteous to " Y. B. A. Z.," as he has 

 appealed to me more than once, to make some reply to his 

 letter, and this I will do as briefly as I can. 



I do not take exception to your correspondent speaking of 

 Mr. Worthington and myself as enthusiastic admirers of the 

 Light Brahmas ; but I would remind him that Mr. Worthington, 

 as well as Jlr. Crook, who wrote so ably in page 83, are breeders 

 of Dark Brahmas as well as of Light, and therefore are not likely 

 to be partial to the sne breed over the other, and that both 

 these gentlemen are loud in denouncing the present system as 

 unfair to the Light birds. 



" Y. B. A. Z." says, that as shows are sometimes not success- 

 ful, it is hard upon secretaries to expect them to give cups to 

 both Light and Dark. Mr. Worthington and I both meet 

 this difKculty by suggesting separate prizes, less in amount if 

 need be, for each variety ; in other words, the same money given 

 as now, but more fairly divided. 



" Y. B. A. Z." asks why, if both varieties of Brahmas have a 

 cup, should not all the breeds of Cochins and Hamburghs have 

 one also ? forgetting that these latter have a far more equal 

 chance in competing one variety against another for a cup, 

 than the Light Brahmas have against the Dark. 



" Y. B. A. Z." goes on to speak of the improved position of 

 Brahmas in the prize lists, and asks, quaintly enough, whether 

 Dark and Light Brahma exhibitors are to be still dissatisfied ? 

 The answer is obvious : the Dark which always take the cup 

 have no cause for dissatisfaction, the Light which never take 

 it have much ! He goes on to speak of the " degeneration " of 

 the Light Brahmas. The judges will tell a very different tale. 

 In numbers, in correctness of points, in beauty, they are far 

 ahead of what they once were. I shall not forget Mr. Hewitt's 

 pleased comments on the class (of over twenty pens) at South- 

 ampton last autumn, when such was the general excellence 

 that birds which had won many a prize had to be content with 

 commendations ! 



I am grateful to " Y'. B. A. Z." for his allusion to my old 

 cock, which was indeed declared by the judges to be as near 

 perfection as possible, but I am bound to say that the general 

 average of Light Brahmas is much improved ; and were he still 

 alive, he would have to compete, though, I doubt not, still 

 successfully, with a larger class of " foemen worthy of his 

 steel." 



"Y. B. A. Z." objects in the case of the Brahmas to the 

 judging of two or more classes competing for a cup on the only 

 true and possible principle of equity — namely, the comparison 

 of each specimen with the standard of its own breed. He 

 candidly admits the justice of the principle in the similar case 

 of Geese and Ducks. 



Lastly, he imputes inferiority in many respects to the Light 

 Brahmas, and then builds upon this supposed inferiority a 

 tiiTOry that the breeding for colour has done all the mischief. 

 He trill forgive me, if I say that he does not seem to see that 

 by so doing he puts himself out of court in the (luestion at 

 issue between the two varieties, for how can he be a judge of 

 the comparative merits of Light and Dark Brahmas who sub- 

 stantially denies that there should be any difference of colour 

 between them, or, at all events, makes colour a matter im- 



material, and who looks upon them aa one and the same breed ? 

 Clearly he would not bo the best judge of the relative merits of 

 blue and green who deemed blue and green one and the same 

 colour ! 



Before concluding, let mo say how delighted I am to see 

 what sympathy Mr. Wortliington's appeal has met with ia 

 your columns. From England and Ireland, from London and 

 Southampton, from Alton and Limerick, from breeders, ex- 

 hibitors, and secretaries of shows alike, comes the same 

 unanimous voice, that Light Brahmas ought to be placed on au 

 equal footing with the Dark.— .John Paiie.s, I'ustfurd, 



P.S. — Since writing the above, I have read the letters of 

 "Nemo," and "Bengal," in the last Journal. The remarks 

 of " Benoai. " are most just and forcible. Secretaries will be 

 wise if they adopt his advice, and that of Mr. Warren, the able 

 Secretary of the Southampton Show, and establish equality 

 between Light and Dark, giving, if possible, cups to both 

 varieties, and, in any case, separate prizes. 



" Nemo " is, I think, right in maintaining that the under 

 fluff of Light Brahmas should be, not white, but of a bluish 

 grey. My old cock, Sampson, so often mentioned, and whose 

 merits all your correspondents seem to have recognised, 

 possessed this characteristic. Plenty of good birds at the 

 present time possess it also. 



" Nemo" is also right in saying that the theoi^ of the Light 

 Brahma being a " cross " originally, is utterly untenable. The 

 original imported birds depicted in Miss Watts's book, were 

 Light Brahmas, not Dark, and may connect the latter variety 

 with the Coloured Dorking in origin ; the similarity has fre- 

 quently been pointed out to me by careful observers at shows. 

 Be this as it may, I should be very sorry to introduce White 

 Cochins into my yard, with a view of " improving " what 

 "Nemo" most justly calls such "exquisite beauties" as pure 

 Light Brahmas. "Nemo" concludes with a most valuable 

 remark — ho most wisely calls the attention of judges to the 

 fact that Light birds lojk smaller than Dark ones, when thej 

 really are not so. 



Though a breeder of neither the Dark nor Light birds, and 

 therefore writing without favour or aflection, may I be allowed 

 a few words on the question now agitated in your columns ? 

 When Mr. Pares speaks of " the best relatively of its own 

 variety," I imagine he means the same thing as " Y. B. A. Z." 

 does by the " comparative merits ;" for if a cup be given to 

 two varieties, we may fairly assume that there is one ideal 

 standard of excellence for both — that is, if A represents such 

 standard for Dark, jt does also for Light'; for if we say the 

 standard for Light is a — n, then an inferiority on their part is 

 assumed, and it is a farce to offer a prize to the two varieties 

 when one is assumed to be necessarily superior to the other. 

 It is as though a competitive examination were open to black 

 and white boys, and a certain number of marks allowed to the 

 black ; or as if a cup were offered to black and grey horses, 

 with an understanding that the grey must be the worse ; in 

 this case the dark horse would he sure to win, and no one 

 would " bet on the grey," no one would even enter a grey. 

 But in point of fact it appears that judges will assume this 

 superiority on the part of the Dark birds. The fairest thing 

 would therefore be, instead of giving a cup, to divide the money 

 between the varieties, or what would, perhaps, be better, to give 

 the cup in alternate years to Dark and Light, and then we 

 may say to the breeders of both — Why ee Afiuid? 



HAMBURGHS renin BRAHMAS. 



It requires some audacity in the face of the prevailing 

 worship of the feathered Brahma to come forward and pro- 

 claim him as great an impostor as his Hindoo namesake, but 

 if you care to have the experience of a convert you may insert 

 this communication. 



At the commencement of last year I was red hot for Brahmas. 

 I spent a fair amount of money in purchasing a cock and ten 

 hens and pullets of various strains. Of the hens six were 

 allowed to run with the Brahma cock. The remaining four, 

 with three half-bred Cochin hens, were put in a separate run 

 with a Dorking cock. I also had a third run, in which I had a 

 Golden-pencilled Hamburgh cock, two hens, and a pullet. The 

 runs were side by side, and the fowls all had exactly the same 

 treatment, each lot being let out alternately for a run in a large 

 field, generally for half the day. As I could not always dis- 

 tinguish the eggs of the Brahmas from those of the half-bred 



