ANCONAS. 205 



of breast, but the carcase is not very plump. At liberty it 

 is a very active forager, and a capital farmers' fowl, while 

 confinement does not make it dirty. It is also hardy. We 

 have thought it rather more than usually addicted in con- 

 finement to feather-eating, and so have several of our 

 correspondents ; but others have repelled this charge, and it 

 is not safe to generalise too much from personal experiences 

 which may have had special causes. Its best crosses will be 

 the same as those with Minorcas ; but it may be worth 

 noting that whenever the latter have lost hardiness or laying 

 properties by too close breeding, the Andalusian cross gives 

 a fowl most hardy and fertile, with no other striking 

 difference. 



ANCONAS. This name has been given to different fowls 

 of different origin. From about 1860 to 1880 those so 

 known were cuckoo-coloured fowls, of the same type as the 

 preceding, and with dark legs ; their origin being no doubt 

 a cross between black and white. This colour and marking, 

 however, when it once appears, is far more permanent than 

 the blue dun, and generally persists as a whole, though with 

 tendency to black, white, and coloured feathers about tail 

 and hackles, which have to be carefully bred out. The birds 

 may very likely have come from Ancona, round which all 

 colours and crosses exist amongst fowls of this type ; they 

 were rather small and short-legged, and all the specimens we 

 came across had the reputation of being splendid layers and 

 hardy, as cross-bred birds of laying strains generally are. 



About 1883 another variety was introduced, this time 

 undoubtedly from Ancona, where mottled fowls of one kind 

 or another seem to abound. These birds more resembled 

 the Leghorn type, to be next described, having yellow 

 beaks, and legs also yellow, more or less mottled with black. 

 The plumage also differs completely, being mottled or 



