252 THE GAME FOWL. 



he obtained of me during the last summer. They will be read 

 with interest, especially as they abound, also, in many import- 

 ant miscellaneous remarks and suggestions : 

 DR. J. J. KERR : 



Dear Sir: I certainly owe you a long letter, and if I am 

 not able to pay it to-night, you may very soon expect another, 

 and, this time, without fail. 



Our term of Court came on early in the month, and lasted 

 two weeks. This, of course, had to be attended. Since then, 

 I have been waiting on my friend, Dr. Kobt. B. McCay, to 

 sJcetch a Chicken or two for me, which I have thought suffi- 

 ciently remarkable to deserve a place in the book. * * * 



As ignorance is in all cases preferable to error, it is certainly 

 a writer's highest duty to know well what he undertakes to 

 teach. Impressed with this idea, my dear sir, the aid I shall 

 be able to afford you in your very laudable enterprise, must, 

 of necessity, be trifling and unimportant. I may furnish a few 

 striking facts in support of certain doctrines you will be likely 

 to advance. And this I will do right gladly, for I consider a 

 man who writes a book on a useful and interesting subject, one 

 of the greatest of mankind's benefactors 



Accidental qualities may be transmitted from parent to 

 child, as the following will show : 



A friend of mine, the late Robert Grant, owned a fine large 

 breed of Game Fowls shawl necks, or Irish grays ; the Cocks 

 weighing seven pounds. One of his roosters, when a mere 

 chicken, stepped into the fire, and roasted off his toe-nails. 

 He hardly ever got an offspring that did not, more or less, show 

 his parentage, by defective toes. I procured a couple of his 

 progeny, and have the Hen yet. Her Chickens and grand' 

 chickens have the same signs. Is it not wonderful, that a 

 mere accident should thus mark at least four generations ? 



Two years ago, I purchased, from a gentleman in Blooms- 



