278 THE POLAND, OR POLISH FOWL. 



THE BLACK POLISH FOWLS are of a uniform black, both 

 Cock and Hen, glossed with metallic green. The head is or 

 namented with a handsome crest of white feathers, springing 

 from a fleshy protuberance, and fronted more or less deeply with 

 black. The comb is merely two or three spikes, and the wat- 

 tles are rather small. Both male and female are the same in 

 colour, except that the Cock has frequently narrow stripes of 

 white in the waving feathers of the tail ; a sign, it is said, ot 

 true breeding. The Hens also have two or three feathers on 

 each side of the tail, tinged in the tip with white. The Hens 

 do not lay quite so early in the spring as some varieties, espe- 

 cially after a hard winter ; but they are exceedingly good lay- 

 ers, continuing a long time without wanting to sit, and laying 

 rather large, very white sub-ovate Eggs. They will, however, 

 sit at length, and prove of very diverse dispositions; some 

 being excellent sitters and nurses, others heedless and spiteful. 

 The Chicks, when first hatched, are dull black, with white 

 breasts, and white down on the front of the head. They do 

 not always grow and get out of harm's way so quickly as some 

 other sorts, but are not particularly tender. In rearing a brood 

 of these Fowls, one may observe some of the Hens with crests 

 round and symmetrical as a ball, and others in which the 

 feathers turn all ways, and fall loosely over the eyes : and in the 

 Cocks, also, some have the crest falling gracefully over the 

 back of the head, and others have the feathers turning about 

 and standing on end ; these are to be rejected, the chief beauty 

 of the sort depending on such little particulars. One Hen 

 laid just a hundred Eggs, many of them on consecutive days, 

 before wanting to incubate ; after rearing a brood successfully, 

 she laid twenty-five Eggs before moulting in autumn. 



THE BLACK-TOPPED WHITE POLISH is now, it seems, lost 

 to this country, if, indeed, there is any evidence of its having 

 ever existed here. Buffon mentions them as if extant in 

 France in his time. These and the Shackbags are probably re 



