14 



THE LEGHORNS 



brown type of Italian fowls with black breasted males may 

 be looked upon as carrying the inborn marks of their 

 ancient lineage. j ,• , 



But, what produces the shape, and the lithe and lively 

 qualities? There is a "blue blood" and a fineness about 

 this breed which we may best account for by the climate 

 where they have lived for ages. What makes the differ- 

 ence between the quick, impulsive Italian and Frenchman, 

 and the native of northern Europe? Is it not the long- 

 continued direct and indirect influence of the climate? 



But, besides the influence of climate, what naturalists 

 call correlative development has much to do with it. By 

 this term is meant that the growth of one part of the body 

 of an animal affects the growth of other parts. Now what 

 can we expect of a small or medium-sized fowl like the 

 Brown Leghorn hen? Surely not meat enough to fill the 

 stomachs of a large family at dinner! She flies around 

 lively, and cannot, of com se, lay on flesh. She is enter- 

 prising, and her very lightness and quickness render her 

 able to go farther in a day, and, if at liberty, get a pro- 

 portionately larger share of the good things, such as 

 ^prr- "■■ ' ••' — *' t- -^ake "^er 'ay eggs W^^'e s^e i = 



5 S C BRO^\N LEGHORNS IN 



doing this, a specimen of some larger breed will hang 

 around the barn or shed, eat corn, lay few eggs, but de- 

 velop a body amply sufficient in bulk to dine a company 

 of six men. 



There is a balancement in growing things. If nutri- 

 ment flows to one part of the organism, another part must 

 go lean. The cow that makes two pounds of butter per 

 day will, very likely, present a body of skin and bones, 

 after she has been at it a considerable time; while the 

 Shorthorn, with ample proportions, bones well hung with 

 fat, gives but little milk, with few oily globules. We 

 never see a crest on a large comb, or find a beard and 

 large wattles on the same fowl. A little crab-apple will 

 have an abundance of seed in perfection. A cultivated 

 apple, large, luscious, well-flavored, will have few seeds, 

 and a portion of those in a state of atrophy. 



Some one may ask if the sunny clime of Italy will 

 cause monstrous combs to grow on fowls. We answer 

 that the tendency of a cold climate is to make combs 

 small. Men living in a cold country will select specimens 

 with small combs as breeders, for the reason that large 

 combs will invariably get frozen. But, in a mild country, 

 a large comb may be cultivated, also those of curious or 

 fantastic shape, as the French breeds. 



There is a tendency among mankind to admire some 

 extraordinary development, or something very small. It 

 is not unreasonable to supoose that Italians, away back to 

 the time of the Roman Empire, if you please, cultivated 

 these high single combs and large wattles. Women care for 

 poultry, to a great extent, in Europe, and these extrava- 

 gant combs are of a piece with hair fixings sixteen inches 

 high, hoops four feet in diameter, and shoes with heels 

 stilted. 



It cannot be denied that the people of a nation pro- 

 ducing many artists will be very likely to select and breed 



domestic poultry with taste, and with an eye to the beau- 

 tiful. Who does not think that the combs and wattles 

 (not frozen) on a Leghorn are very pleasing? 



But, however much or little the premeditated selection 

 of the keepers may have effected in the matter of combs 

 (and we are inclined to suspect that it has accomplished a 

 great deal, not so much in originating the large combs as 

 in perpetuating and intensifying the trait), the law of cor- 

 relative development has come in play here also, no doubt, 

 working slowly, but surely for ages. They have small bodies, 

 and can afford to have large combs and full, large tails. No 

 doubt man has much to do with this, but nature fixe: these 

 things so that they are suitable, and it is not difficult for 

 man to fall in and help a little. How the Leghorn would 

 look with a small comb and a Cochin tail! Intolerable, 

 even with large egg production. It is easy to beHeve that 

 a large body naturally has proportionately small append- 

 ages; so that when we get a fowl with a large, thick-set 

 body, the tail and head fixings are small, not entirely 

 through man's interference by selection. 



We can give no reason for many things in nature but 

 'hat they are so. >xany other things are very plain. For 

 instance, a wild dog carries his small ears erect, be- 

 cause he must listen almost constantly, in his wild 

 condition, in order to get a living; but generally the 

 tame dog has large lopped ears, because he is free, 

 in his tame condition, from the necessity of con- 

 stant watching, and the muscles of the ear become 

 lax by disuse. Use has much to do with develop- 

 ment. Note the muscles of the blacksmith's arm. 

 The Brown Leghorn has large wings. Why? Ac- 

 tivity accounts for it; also, in a measure, for the size 

 of the tail. Watch one of this breed, and you will 

 see the head move quickly and often. Does not this 

 cause rapid and full circulation of blood and help to 

 develop large comb and wattles? 



First White Leghorns 



Whether the ancestral blood was pure Spanish 

 or blended wi.h the latter by the blood of the 

 "Italiens," the undisputed fact remains that the 

 first White Leghorns appeared in Uncle Sam's do- 

 main, and the first trio to arrive in England left 

 America's shores in 1869. Of this importation to 

 Great Britain, the well-known English poultry au- 

 thority, W. B. Tegetmeier, in his book "Poultry for 

 the Table and Market versus Fancy Fowls," London, 

 1893, writes as follows: 



Another breed, which obviously originated on the 

 shores of the Mediterranean, is the Leghorn, which was 

 first known as a yellow-legged, white-plumaged variety. 

 The birds shown in the engraving (see Fig. 1) were those 

 first introduced into this country by myself from America 

 in the year 1869. The Leghorn is also a non-sitter and a 

 most prolific layer of white eggs. It has lately come into 

 greater fashion as a show-fowl, and various colors have 

 been developed in the plumage. The co-called Brown 

 Leghorns have been made by crossing with the Black- Red 

 Game, and recently a breed, with much white in its com- 

 position, called Pyle Leghorns, and other colors, such as 

 Black, Buff and Cuckoo, have been produced. Leghorns 

 are generally smaller than the Minorcas or Andalusians. 



The engraving on page 7 is a very accurate representa- 

 tion of the first trio of White Leghoins which was import- 

 ed to this country by myself in 1869. Not having been bred 

 for show points, they were most prolific, and promised to 

 become a very useful addition to our egg-producing 

 breeds; but, having been raised to the dignity of an exhi- 

 bition fowl, more attention has been paid to their white 

 earlobes and serrated combs than to their prolificacy. 



Leghorn breeders who have taken the trouble to 

 study the history of the breed admit that W. Simpson of 

 New York City, was the first breeder of White Leghorns 

 in the United States. W. J. Fullerton, a Canadian breeder 

 of White Leghorns, made a careful search of the early 

 records relating to his favorite variety, and incorporated 

 the following data found by him, in an article published in 

 the "Canadian Poultry Advocate" some five or six years ago : 



