172 



THE AMERICAN POULTERER'S COMPANION. 



THE SE11A1 TAOOK, 



THE SERAI TAOOK, OR SULTAN 5 S FOWL. 



These fowls were sent from Constantinople 

 to the editress of the Poultry Chronicle, pub- 

 lished in London, by a friend living there, in 

 January, 1852. 



" A year before," she says, " we had sent him 

 some Cochin China fowls, with which he was 

 very much pleased ; and when his son soon 

 after came to England, he could send from 

 Turkey some fowls with which we should be 

 pleased. Scraps of information about muffs 

 and divers beauties and decorations arrived be- 

 fore the fowls, and led to expectations of some- 

 thing much prettier than the pretty Ptarmigans, 

 in which we had always noticed a certain un- 

 certainty of tuft and comb. 



"In January, they arrived in a steamer chief- 

 ly manned by Turks, we should fancy much 

 dirtier and in worse plight than the arrival at 

 Mount Plym. The voyage had been very long 

 and rough, and poor fowls so rolled over and 

 glued into one mass of filth were never seen. 

 Months afterward, with the aid of one of the 

 first fanciers in the country, we spent an hour 

 in trying to ascertain whether the feathers of 

 the cock were white or striped, and almost con- 

 cluded that the last was the true state of the 

 case, although they had been described by our 

 friend as ' Bellissimi galli Beanchi.' 



"We at once saw enough to make us 

 ! very unwilling to be entirely dependent for 

 ; the breed on the one sad-looking gentleman, 

 i with his tuft heavy with dirt for a mantle, 



