January IG, 1866. ] 



JOUENAL OF HOBTICULTUEE AND COTTAGE GAKDENEE. 



59 



siduration, awaivlecl to Mr. Boyle. Pencilleil Hambim/JuiwerQ wi-etched. 

 Spangles were good and admirably judged, as also ware Pohtiirh. 



Diti-1^ were a very lar.i^e and tine show ; G^i'^t:' and TurJ:ri/^ of most 

 marvellous size, the Hon. Mrs. Arbutliuot's Urst-prize pen of Tm-keys 

 weigliinf:; 63 lbs., cock and one lieu. 



Bitntwti^ were a beautiful sliow. We need only mention tbe names 

 of Messrs. Leno, Rayuor, Crossland, Hodgson, .\ndersou, and Man- 

 nin*'. Siiujlc cochi were a poorsliow, except Cochins. The local birds 

 were first-rate. 



Mr. Dixon awarded the prizes, of which a list appeared in our last 

 Nnmber. 



THE POULTRY BOOK. 

 iiij W. B. Tegetmeiee. London : G. Eoutledge & Sons. 

 We liave received the commencement of this work, \vhich is 

 proposed to be completed in fifteen monthly shilling parts. It 

 is " The Poultry Book" published some years since, edited by 

 Mr. Wingfield and Mr. Johnson, re-arranged with additions. 

 We think it right to apprise our readers of this, as Mr. Teget- 

 meier's name only appears on the cover and in the advertise- 

 ment, from which they might be led to believe that it is the 

 production of that gentleman. 



A SHOCK TO THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 



In yoiu- report of the Aberdeen Poultry Show you give the 

 name of Mr. H. Ashton, of Manchester, as the winner, with a 

 pen of Nankin Bantams, of the third prize in the Selling Class. 

 If you will refer to the printed prize-list of the Show you will 

 find a pen of Black Red Game Bantams of mine marked also 

 as .third prize. When my basket of birds was returned to me 

 it contained the printed card marked '• Third prize." ! As there 

 were fourteen entries in this class, and the names of the two 

 third-prize men occur at each end of the list, it is clear that 

 the mistake in the catalogue is not the fault of the printer, and 

 that the " third-prize " card could not have been slipped into 

 my basket by mistake. 



At the last Farnworth (Chapelry) Poultry Show, for which, 

 by the way, my direction labels did not ai-rive until after I bad 

 sent the birds with labels of my own, a very line pen of my 

 Game Bant.ims retm-ued with the first-prize card in the basket. 

 Then came a letter from the Secretary, with an apology that 

 he could not send me a prize-list, which I had written before- 

 hand to secure, as they were all sold on the day ; and a pohte 

 intimation that I was "fairly beaten" by three exhibi^tors, 

 whose names were given, but of whom I had never heard be- 

 fore, although I read the prize lists of aU the shows attentively 

 in those classes, which are my fancy. As no report of this 

 Show appeared either in yom- paper or your sporting contem- 

 porary, whatever honour I may have won or lost remains in 

 obscm-ity. I do not complain tliat I was " fairly beaten " at 

 Farnworth, although I do not like the phrase ; but I do com- 

 plain that I had a first-prize card without the prize, that I 

 had not a prize list, and that the Show was not reported in the 

 poultry journals. 



I shall be much obliged if you will insert this, as I am one 

 of those people whose lives, according to the " Wiltshiee 

 Eectok," ought not to be accepted by insurance offices, " be- 

 cause exhibiting must be so wearing to the nervous system." — 

 Geokge MA^■^•I.^■G, Sprintjficld, Esssc.v. 



Yon say, '■ Selling Class (Any variety). Third, H. Ashton, 

 Nankin Bantam." My birds at the time of the Aberdeen Show 

 were in my poultry-yard, many miles from Aberdeen. I sent 

 nothing at all. — Howabth Ashtox. 



VULTURE-HOCKED COCHIN-CHINAS. 



I .V5I very glad that our Editors have expressed an opinion so 

 decidedly upon the subject of vulture hocks. There can be 

 no doubt that the subject has been allowed to remain imnotioed 

 too long, and that the time has now arrived for it to be brought 

 boldly fom-ard, and fuUy and freely discussed. By having 

 neglected to do this, an opinion has been growing and spread- 

 ing,_that any approach to the vulture hock is exceedingly ob- 

 jectionable, and I am sorry to find that some of our judges 

 have evinced their agreement with this opinion by withholdmg 

 prizes from such birds as have had this particular mark. It is 

 certainly very mortifying to an exhibitor whose pen is unques- 

 tionably the best in the class, barring this supposed defect, to 



see it passed coldly by, while others which are far below the 

 mark come off with fiying colours. 



It is sheer nonsense to affinn that the vulture hock, although 

 objectionable, is not a disqualification. The fact speaks for 

 itself. It has disqualified and put to the right-about many a 

 pen which has been ten times more deserving of honour than 

 those upon which it has been bestowed. That such a judgment 

 is somewhat arbitrary must be readily granted by any one who 

 looks fairly at the matter. Why, it is but a very short time 

 ago, that the vultiire-hocked Brahmas (I refer more especially 

 to the Brahmas) were the most admired and the most success- 

 ful competitors of this class at our annual shows. We never 

 heard till lately of this i^rofuseness of feathering at the hock 

 being a defect. It was, I believe, rather considered an orna- 

 ment. Certain I am that it pertains to those birds which carry 

 the heaviest flufi, have the shortest, best-feathered legs, pre- 

 sent the finest figure, and attain the largest size. Why should 

 it be pronounced a drawback ? It was not thought so three or 

 four years ago. Their parents came off triumphantly from 

 many a hard contest, and why should not the same laurels be 

 awarded to their oilspring ? Why should they be doomed to 

 ignominy and defeat while less deserving competitors are 

 crowned and applauded ? Poor, innocent creatures, what have 

 they done ? Why must they be pecked, and cuffed, and virtually 

 set down among the mean and disqualified ? What shadow of 

 a reason can be assigned for all this ? Has any new discovery 

 been made to sanction and justify this sweeping condemnation ? 

 Has their blood become tainted ? Have they degenerated in 

 coloui', in calibre, iu form, in spirit, in carriage, or anything 

 else, so as to forfeit the rank and prestige which belonged to 

 them in'former years ? If so, let it be clearly proved, and I 

 will spread my regis over them no longer ; but if the prejudice 

 against these matchless birds be nothing more than a mere 

 fancy, a mere matter of taste, and which has been allowed so to 

 bias and warp the judgment of our .Judges as to consign them 

 to the dust of inevitable defeat, I beg permission, through the 

 coliunns of this admirable Journal, to enter my respectful but 

 earnest protest against this prodigious wrong. 



Are gentlemen v.ho have been at considerable expense and 

 trouble in purchasing or rearing these fine specimens to sit 

 down quietly and see them cooUy put aside, or rather unscru- 

 pulously immolated upon the altar of caprice ? If what is sanc- 

 tioned one year may be reprobated the next, what groimd of 

 secmrity have we to stand upon ? The shape of a coat or a hat 

 may be altered from tune to time as the winds of fashion may 

 happen to blow, but to allow our feathered friends to be sub- 

 jected to such perpetual shiftings, would be expensive, whim- 

 sical, and absurd. Do this, and we at once expose om-selves to 

 the merited charge of running poultry-mad. — Jusiitia. 



THE DISEASES OF BEES. 



{Continued from jJage 535.) 



Foul Bhood. — Any description of the diseases of bees must 

 necessarily be incomplete without some notice of what Dzier- 

 zon most correctly states to be " incontestably and beyond 

 comparison the greatest misfortune that can befall the bee- 

 keeper;" but as the long discussion on this subject, which 

 commenced in the autumn of 1803, must be fresh in the recol- 

 lection of many of my readers, I wiU refer to it as briefly as 

 possible. 



This disease, which, as its name implies, affects not the adult 

 bees but only the brood, appears so far to have baffled all 

 attempts at discovering its origin. It attacks the young l&rYse 

 in their various stages of development. At first only a few 

 die ; but these are not removed by the bees as is the case with 

 chilled brood, and, as they putrefy in their cells, the infection 

 spreads until but very few bees arrive at maturity, the brood 

 combs become masses of corrupt and most offensive matter, 

 and the stock dwindles and ultimately perishes. It is a singu- 

 lar fact that the diseased brood is, at any rate sometimes, 

 inverted iu the cells*, so that even if it arrived at maturity 

 the young bees would be unable to liberate themselves, and 

 this has given rise to the absurd idea, promiJgated by some 

 old writers, that all the mischief arises from the queen depo- 

 siting her eggs with the wrong end upwards ! I need hardly 

 say that this ridiculous notion is incorrect, nor do the unfor- 

 tunate larvse ever arrive at the stage at which they would 

 perish simply from being unable to liberate themselves from 

 their confinement. They seem to die soon after they have 



• I am uncertain as to whether thia is invariably the case. 



