THE DOEKING FOWL. 189 



may fairly be called large. They are not everlasting layers, 

 but at due or convenient intervals manifest the desire of sitting. 

 In this respect they are steady and good mothers, when the 

 little ones appear. They are better adapted than any other 

 Fowl, except the Malay, to hatch superabundant Turkey's 

 Eggs. Their size and bulk enable them to afford warmth and 

 shelter to the Turkey-poults for a long period. For the same 

 reason, spare Goose's Eggs may be intrusted to them ; though 

 in this respect I have known the Pheasant-Malays to be equally 

 successful. 



With all these merits they are not found to be a profitable 

 stock if kept thorough-bred and unmixed. Their powers seem 

 to fail at an early age. They are also apt to pine away and 

 die just at the point of reaching maturity. When the Pullet 

 ought to begin .to lay, and the Cockerel to crow and start his 

 tail-feathers, the comb, instead of enlarging and becoming 

 coral-red, shrinks and turns to a sickly pink, or even to a leaden 

 hue ; and the bird, however well-fed and warmly housed, dies, 

 a wasted mass of feathers, skin, and bone. It is vexing, after 

 having reared a creature just to the point when it would be 

 most valuable for the table or as stock, to find it "going light," 

 as jthe country people call it; particularly as it is the finest 

 specimens, that is, the most thorough-bred, that are destroyed 

 by this malady. I do not believe that the most favourable 

 circumstances would prevent the complaint, though unfavour- 

 able ones would aggravate it, but that it is inherent in the 

 race and constitution of the birds. They appear at a certain 

 epoch to be seized with consumption, exactly as, in some un- 

 happy families, the sons and daughters are taken off all much 

 at the same age. In the Speckled Dorkings the lungs seem to 

 be the seat of disease, and it is to be regretted that no dissec 

 tion was made in cases where I had the opportunity. 



A gentleman who has kept this breed of Fowls for nearly 

 twenty years, suggests that the foregoing remark ought to be 



