44 



OUR DOMESTIC BIRDS 



FIG. 27. Silver-Gray Dorking cock 



that color, until after the 

 improvement of fowls 

 began. Then some peo- 

 ple collected flocks of 

 fowls of this color and 

 bred them for uniform- 



SHP^ kj4 *ty * n otner characters. 



IK Well-bred fowls, how- 

 ever, were compara- 

 tively rare. Most of the 

 stock all through the 

 country was of the little 

 mongrel type until about 

 the middle of the last 

 century. Then that type 

 began to disappear from 

 New England, New 



York, New Jersey, and eastern Pennsylvania. It remained 

 longer in the Northern states west of the Allegheny Mountains 

 and a generation ago 

 was still the most com- 

 mon type in the upper 

 Mississippi Valley. It 

 is now unknown outside 

 of the Southern states, 

 and within ten or twenty 

 years it will disappear 

 entirely. 



Old European races 

 of fowls. With the ex- 

 ception of the Leghorn, 

 most of the distinct Fic " 28> Silver - Gra y Dorking hen 



breeds of European origin were brought from England, and the 

 types introduced were not the types as developed in the places 



