ASIATIC BREEDS. 127 



by a sailor to New York, obtained by a Connecticut 

 breeder, the late Virgil Cornish of Hartford, bred and 

 brought out by him. 



DARK BRAHMAS. 



In an article which recently appeared in a poultry 

 journal, the writer says: "But few of the breeders are 

 aware of the fact that this beautiful breed was perfected 

 in the hands of our English breeders, out of a brood of 

 chickens that were bred by mating a Black-red Shanghai 

 cock with a Gray Shanghai (or, as then called, Chitegong) 

 hen. But this is the fact. They were sent to England 

 by an American breeder. 



"There was no more heard from them, and the word 

 Dark Brahmas, as a distinct breed of fowls, was not 

 known in America till 1865, when the first importa- 

 tion was made. The assertion that the Dark and Light 

 Brahmas were bred from the same original stock with- 

 out crossing is not true. The first imported ones came 

 with far more single-combs than Pea-combs. The breeding 

 of Pea Comb Brahmas to Partridge Cochins produced new 

 blood; and later we began to get them of less Cochin 

 shape and in every way improved. Such was the early 

 history of the breed. 



" It is not a very flattering thought for home industry 

 that we must send the crude material to a foreign 

 country to be woven into a web of cloth, or perfected 

 into a breed, and receive the same as a thoroughbred in 

 only about a dozen years afterward. Be that as it may, 

 our English brothers in this case have made for us a fine 

 breed, and deserve much praise, and I for one would 

 acknowledge the worth, and give the credit where it 

 belongs. 



" The earlier specimens were, more or less, bronzed 



