82 .1 .1/ /;/,'/ < MA J'Ori/l'ltV J*S,VO67.177O\ 



"This is a variety of New England manufacture, but is, 

 nevertheless, a most useful breed for general purposes and has 

 become wonderfully popular within a very short time. The fowls 

 are cuckoo in plumage and resemble a Cochin in shape more 

 than anything else, as that variety has doubtless had much to 

 do in the making of them." 



Harrison Weir, in the second volume of Our Poultry and 

 All About Them, discusses the American Plymouth Rock and 

 plainly shows that he is very much inclined to adopt a theory 

 that our modern Plymouth Rock is but a perpetuation of the 

 breed originated by Dr. Bennett, which all other authorities 

 regard as extinct. By so doing he certainly leans most decidedly 

 to the Cochin side of the controversy, as a quotation from this 

 discussion by Mr. Weir reads : 



"The Plymouth Rock fowl, then, is in reality one-half Cochin 

 China, one-fourth fawn-colored Dorking, one-eighth Great 

 Malay and one-eighth Wild Indian." 



After quoting the vital part of the Ramsdell article in the 

 Poultry Monthly, Weir comments rather testily : "Then a new 

 cross between the Dominique and some Asiatics and lastly, an- 

 other cross, and that with the so-called Java, of which it is said 

 in Kerr's American edition of the Rev. E. S. Dixon's book 

 (1860), that no such breed existed in America. * * * So 

 much for the Java, but the origin of the Dominique thus remains 

 unknown." 



Plainly, Mr. Weir does not accept, even reluctantly, the 

 Java as a parent of the Plymouth Rock and it seems that he may 

 be equally skeptical concerning the Dominique parentage. Look- 

 ing at the Plymouth Rock fowl from all angles and weighing all 

 theories in the scales of probability and possibility, Mr. Weir 

 again states : 



* * * | 3Ut we are j-oi^ tnat tnev are a new invention made 

 from a cross between Dominiques and Asiatics, and which they 

 have every appearance of." 



The third eminent English authority we wish to quote is Mr. 

 Lewis Wright. It is particularly agreeable and pleasing to 

 American writers to find that a fellow countryman and contem- 

 porary of Mr. Weir contributes the strongest and ablest article 

 in refutation of Mr. Weir's theory of the perpetuation of the 

 Bennett line of Plymouth Rocks. This able and instructive 



