i/8 THE PRACTICAL POULTRY KEEPER. 



the end of each breast feather, and a slight white edging 

 to the fluff, or the white on the breast feathers may be a 

 narrow edge or lacing ; such breed the best-marked birds, 

 but they must have good broad black stripes in their neck 

 and saddle hackles. If well descended as above, however, 

 good black-breasted exhibition cocks may also be found to 

 breed good pullets ; * but the hackles are essential, and 

 some white lacing on the fluff, which is not now allowed in 

 exhibition birds. 



This sharp separation of pullet-breeding stock from the 

 other has not been altogether a gain to Dark Brahma 

 pullets. Clearer ground colour has been gained, but the old 

 beauty of a well-striped hackle has been lost. Most of the 

 best pencilled pullets and hens now have pencilled hackles, 

 near the base at least, and some nearly all up the neck. So 

 general is this rule that breeders may not unlikely make the 

 defect (for it came in as a defect} one of the " points," as the 

 fox endeavoured to do with the loss of his tail. 



The ear-lobes are red, and should fall below the wattles 

 in both breeds. And it is a great matter, so far as appear- 

 ance goes, that the head and beak be short and not 



* A striking example of this may be mentioned in a cockerel bred by 

 ourselves, which won the Crystal Palace and Birmingham cups in 1874, 

 and was perfectly black-breasted. Claimed at the latter show by Messrs. 

 Newnham and Manby, this bird was the progenitor of a large number of 

 pullets, perhaps the finest as a lot ever bred by one yard, and whose 

 blood is to be found, we believe, in all the winning strains of pullets down 

 even to the present day. The same was the case with Mrs. Hurt's noble 

 strain, from which half the blood of the above bird was derived. On the 

 other hand, the excellence of the same mixture of blood as regards 

 exhibition cockerels may be judged not only from the specimen referred 

 to, but from the fact that another cockerel of nearly the same breeding, 

 purchased from the produce of a sitting of eggs sold by us, was the chief 

 progenitor of Mr. Lingwood's celebrated strain of cockerels, for years pre- 

 eminent at the leading shows. Some narrow white lacing on the fluff, 

 however, was necessary for pullet-breeding. 



