ON RAPID STREAMS. 63 



hackle is, after pulling or stripping off the down 

 at the root, to take it by the stem, and with the 

 bright side upwards, place it on the sleeve of a 

 coat, if black, or on any dark object, when the 

 brilliant lustre of the feather will be displayed, 

 and then by pressing the apex against the cloth, 

 bend it, by which we judge of its shape, the 

 regularity of tapering of the fibres, and its stiff- 

 ness and elasticity in regaining its natural 

 shape, after being impressed and bent in any 

 direction. 



The best of all fowls for hackles is the old 

 English game-cock, which, however, is now very 

 difficult to be obtained ; no bird seems to have 

 such lustrous, shining, stiff, and well-shaped 

 feathers as this game fowl, such as was used in 

 times of yore for cock-fighting ; if these cannot 

 be procured, any one wishing to keep a stock of 

 fowls for feathers, will do well to purchase a blue 

 hen from a farmyard, where most of the fowls are 

 either blue or red and black, where indeed the 

 breed seems especially of a blue-red or blackish 

 colour, and mate this hen with a well-bred dark- 

 red or black-red bantam cock; the chicken will 

 be of small size, but one of the cocks of dark 

 colour (blue or red) should be mated with a hen 

 similar to the parent hen, all the others being 

 destroyed, and from this generation we may per- 

 petuate a class of fowls very similar to the old 

 game fowl ; the cross with the bantam fines down 

 the feather, makes it more delicate, better 

 shaped, and brighter in colour; and from this 



