CRESTED FOWLS. 



1(57 



pear to possess any peculiar advantages, and is 

 more interesting as a curiosity than valued for 

 any practical purposes. The hens are not good 

 layers, and their eggs are small, averaging little 

 more than two ounces each in weight. They 

 are described, however, as good mothers. They 

 breed freely with all other domestic fowls, and 

 the offspring is prolific without end. The chick- 

 ens are hardy. They are said to be good table 

 fowls, though small. 



THE GOLDEN- SPANGLED POLAND FOWL. 



This fowl is of no ordinary beauty ; the cock 

 possesses, in a high degree, all the rich at- 

 tractions of his class. He is well and very 

 neatly made, has a plump and round body, and 

 no very great offal. When well bred, exceed- 

 ingly handsome, having golden hackles or an 

 orange red ; and the back and saddle of the 

 same glowing tint. The general ground color 

 of the body is a clear ochre-yellow, spangled 

 with black, which, in some shades, becomes a 

 resplendent green. The primary feathers of 

 the wing are also of the same bright ochre, 

 while the wing-coverts are richly laced. The 

 tail is well plumed, its sickle-feathers being 

 dark brown ; but the smaller ones on the side 

 are of a deeper tone of ochre laced with black. 

 Below the vent and around the thighs the 

 feathers are black. The legs, in both sexes, 

 must be blue, or of a pale slate color, and per- 

 fectly clean ; and this holds good with refer- 

 ence to all the other varieties. 



The Golden-spangled hen is a most splen- 

 did bird, her whole body being still more dis- 

 tinctly marked in the same colors as the cock. 

 The feathers of her breast, neck, and back are 

 all spangled; the wing -coverts, as generally 

 happens in spangled birds, being laced ; her 

 tail, also, should be of the same clear tint, laced 

 and tipped with black ; while the top-knot is 

 usually dark, and sometimes nearly black. 



An accurate description of the precise ar- 

 rangement and tone of the feathering of the 

 Spangled fowl is, however, a matter of some 

 difficulty, since the best specimens will occa- 

 sionally vary. Their colors, again, undergo 

 change during the age of the bird ; for it is an 

 undoubted fact that Polands generally increase 



in beauty for three or four years, and it is not 

 till the third or fourth moult that they attain 

 their full size and brilliancy of feather. The 

 top-knot, too, we should observe, increases up 

 to this period. 



Many of them are disfigured by a nmff, or 

 whiskers, or beard ; but no such birds should I e 

 allowed a place in the poultry-yard, but be dis- 

 posed of at once, either by sale or the fattening- 

 coop. 



THE WHITE POLAND WITH BLACK CRESTS. 



If a white fowl with a black crest ever did 

 exist, it is now regarded, as in all probability, 

 extinct. 



An attempt is said to have been made in En- 

 gland, a few years since, to revive the White 

 Polish with a black crest, by crossing the Silver 

 Top-knot with a pure White Top-knot fowl. 

 The experiment failed ; but it proved one thing, 

 however : that it will not do to breed from the 

 White Polish as a separate breed ; being albinos, 

 the chicks come very weakly, and few survive. 



Buffon mentions them as if extant in France 

 in his time. But Dr. Bennett, in speaking of 

 this fowl, says, " This variety of Polish fowl i 

 the most pure and unmixed of the three ; it i?, 

 indeed, the uncontaminated of the great fowl 

 of St. Jago. Its color is a brilliant white, with 

 a jet black top-knot. This variety was described 

 by Aldrovandus, and more recently by Dr. Becl;- 

 stien. I have never myself seen a specimen of 

 this breed, and have every reason to believe it 

 to be extinct, or very nearly so. Applications 

 have been made to several persons, in both Ger- 

 many and Poland, connected with the poultry 

 fancy, for the purpose of procuring specimens 

 of these birds at any cost, but the answers re- 

 turned were, without one exception, that they 

 were no longer to be had." 



The following allusion to this bird, taken from 

 the "Poultry Book," may interest our readers : 



"'The last good specimens I saw,' says Mr. 

 Brent, 'was in the year 1845, at St. Omer, in 

 France ; it was a hen, and belonged to a boat- 

 builder who lived by the canal. She was of 

 large size, so that the Malays in the same yard 

 appeared small in comparison ; her color was 

 white, with a large black top-knot, some few of 



