232 THE PRACTICAL POULTRY KEEPER. 



colour, which requires the same care in breeding as the 

 Buff Leghorn. 



Except for the yellow leg and skin, the Plymouth Rock 

 is an excellent market fowl, making very early and rapid 

 growth. It is almost always a good layer; and some Whites 

 bred for this point are first-class layers 170 in a year has 

 been recorded. Like all breeds founded upon crosses, it is 

 hardy where not too much inbred, except that, from some 

 unknown cause, it often shows a mysterious propensity to 

 weakness, gout, cramp, or some affection of the legs and 

 feet. A flock of the barred variety looks particularly well 

 upon a grass farm. A cross between Rocks and a White 

 Leghorn cock, on an average produces, perhaps, the most 

 prolific and all-the-year-round layer of any cross we know. 



BLACK JAVAS. This is a very fine large black fowl, well 

 known in the United States ever since 1850, and which it is 

 very strange should not have been seen in England before 

 1885. Had it stood alone then as a large black fowl, it must 

 have become very popular ; but the Langshan and the 

 Orpington, in which its own blood undoubtedly runs, had 

 already occupied the field, and it has only at present become 

 very sparingly diffused, though the purest and most 

 distinctive large black breed of any. As already noted, it 

 was used in the production of the Plymouth Rock, and the 

 Langshan obviously owes to it the character of its head and 

 comb and eye, and the beautiful gloss of its plumage. 



The Java should weigh about 10 Ib. in cocks and 8 Ib. 

 in hens, the plumage being close, and very glossy black with 

 green reflections. The legs are also black, with some ten- 

 dency to get willow with age. The deaf-ears and wattles 

 are only moderately developed, and bright red. The body 

 is full and deep, yet with a sort of Hamburgh symmetry on 

 a more massive proportion, with legs moderate in length 



