34 THE BRAHMA POOTRA FOWL. 



Burnham says : " Mr. Burnhara was the first to introduce this large 

 breed of grey fowls into Massachusetts in 1849 and 1850. [Mr. B. is 

 incog, editor, and writes of himself as of another person. ED. NORTH- 

 ERN FARMER.] They were called Chittagongs at that time." Now, 

 the Chittagongs to which Mr. Burnham refers, are grey Chittagongs ; 

 I had some of the same stock. They were purchased of Dr. Kerr by 

 Mr. Burnham and myself at the same time. Mr. Burnham admits 

 that these fowls are Chittagongs, and so do I. They were, and now 

 are, of a grey owl-color, not white, with black tails and penciled neck- 

 hackles, like the Brahma Pootras. [The Brahma Pootras are just as 

 here described. ED.] Mr. Burnham's pair of Chittagongs, which he 

 pretends are similar to Brahma Pootras, passed into the hands of Mr. 

 G. W. George, of Haverhill, Mass. On the 28th of June, Mr. George 

 visited Great Falls to see my Brahma Pootras. He was accompanied 

 by Mr. TV. P. Neff, of Cincinnati, Ohio. I requested Mr. George to 

 Btate in the presence of Mr. Neff, whether Mr. Burnham's Chittagongs, 

 which he owned, resembled my Brahma Pootras. He replied, "Not 

 in the least. The Chittagongs that I had of Mr. Burnhara are owl- 

 colored, or grey, more like a Dominique fowl." Now, Mr. Burnham's 

 " grey Chittagongs" have turned out to be "grey Shanghaes," for he 

 gays they are " perfectly identical I " If this is true, there is no such 

 thing as Chittagong fowls ! ! They are all grey Shanghaes now ! 

 That Mr. Burnham has some grey Shanghaes, I am not disposed to 

 contradict, but that they are the original grey Chittagongs, I deny. 

 But if they were the same, that circumstance would have nothing to 

 do with their being Brahma Pootras, because neither of these breeds 

 resemble the Brahma Pootras in the least. That Mr. Burnham had 

 no fowls in 1849 and 1850, resembling the Brahma Pootras in the 

 least, / know to a certainty, and in confirmation of this statement I 

 append a letter from Virgil Cornish, Esq., of Conn. 



Yours, 



J. C. BENNETT. 

 



July 19th, 1852. 



DR. J. C. BENNETT : Dear Sir A few weeks ago I received the 

 Northern Farmer, and noticed your article on the Brahma Pootra 

 fowls, with quotations from my letter to you, which are all correct. I 

 have shown the article to Mr. Chamberlain, and he says that the de- 

 scription of the origin of these fowls, as there given by you, is per- 

 fectly correct. You have probably noticed the article in the New 

 England Cultivator for June, under the head of " Grey Shanghaes," 

 in which tlfe author claims that the Brahma Pootras are identical 

 with that breed, <fec., telling us that Mr. Burnham knows all about 

 them, and had them in 1849 and 1850, <fcc. Now I happened to meet 

 Mr. Burnham at the Poultry Fair in 1850, when he told me, after 

 viewing a few young specimens of Brahma Pootras shown at that 

 time, that he had never seen anything like them before, and Mr. Morse 

 [Mr. Morse is Secretary of the New England Poultry Society. ED.] 

 also said the same, and denied that they were grey Chittagongs ; and 

 observed that he had never before seen the pure Brahma Pootras. 

 Both gentlemen made great efforts to obtain a promise of some of 



