310 THE BLUE DUN FOWL. 



quite approve of their being called Blue Bantams, as, although 

 the breed is certainly small, it is still respectable in size, and 

 the Eggs are very fair in that respect. 



" The Hens are good layers, wanting to sit after laying a 

 moderate number of Eggs, and proving attentive and careful 

 rearers of their own Chickens, but rather savage to those of 

 other Hens. The Eggs are small and short, tapering slightly 

 at one end, and perfectly white. The Chicks, on just coming 

 from the Egg, sometimes have a ridiculous resemblance to the 

 gray and yellow catkin of the willow, being of a soft bluish 

 gray, mixed with a little yellow here and there. 



<l There is one peculiarity in this breed, which is, that if 

 the variety is kept perfectly unmixed with any other sort, you 

 will seldom obtain more than half the number of the proper 

 Blue Duns, the rest being either black or white. (This would 

 make us strongly suspect that, if their history were known, 

 they are themselves but a cross between two distinct varieties 

 or species of Fowls, and that they must themselves eventually 

 disappear, by assimilation to the type of one or other progeni- 

 tor.) The white Chickens, however, are afterwards sprinkled 

 with dun feathers. Perhaps the original sort may have been 

 either black or white, as we know animals will, after many 

 cross-breedings, ' cry back/ as it is called in some counties, to 

 the origin whence they arose. 



" The Blue Duns are nearly equal to game of any sort for 

 eating. The hackles of the Cock are always in great request 

 for making artificial flies for fishing." H. H. 



A Cockerel of this breed had the comb large, single, deeply 

 serrated; bill, dark horn-colour, white at the points of both 

 mandibles; ear-lobe, whitish; wattles, large and pendent; 

 iris, orange-brown ; neck hackle, yellowish gray ; back hackle, 

 the same, intermixed with black ; legs, light lead-colour ; live 

 weight, 3 Ib. 11 oz. ; general tint, bluish dun ; claws, grayish 

 white. 



