Value of a " Staxdard of Excelle.vce." 165 



Nevertheless, a correct " Standard of Excellence" may be of the highest use. It may on 

 occasions help even a veteran judge ; it may be of incalculable assistance to the inexperienced, and 

 by study and patience train a good judge ; it may maintain the fixed canons of a breed, and show 

 the amateur what he has to aim at ; it can tell him exactly the real quality of his birds, and almost 

 exactly his fair chance of winning ; and it can at least prevent the amateur public from being 

 misled into breeding wrong through any glaring error in judging. Even the English " Standard " 

 published by the quondam "Poultry Club" has done great good in this respect; and, after all 

 that has been said against it, furnishes a useful basis for a more perfect system of judging. It 

 might have done still more, but that the self-constituted body by whom it was issued never 

 possessed tV.e confidence of the poultry public, and that the editor did not manifest sufficient 

 power of seizing the actual and comparative value of different features to guard against error, and 

 ensure giving due weight to the various points, on which its value would obviously depend. 

 Hence this '' Standard " was no sooner published than the best judges in England openly refused 

 to be tound by it ; being, as it was, rather prepared by one or two individuals, stating what 

 in their opinion ought to be the comparative value of various points, than upon the only sound 

 basis, of endeavouring by careful coviparison of actual decisions to tabulate the weight really given 

 to them by the best authorities. The last is the only means of establishing a reliable standard 01 

 judging, and will form the basis of our own tables for the various breeds. While not omitting 

 the old tables, for the sake of comparison, we shall in fact try to show how fowls are judged, 

 according to the best decisions at English shows, not how any individual thinks they ought to be. 

 If we are charged with presumption in thus giving merely personal views, we reply, in the first 

 place, that the existing "Standard," with all its assumption, had no real claim to be anything more ; 

 and further, that our only pretension is the endeavour by careful comparison and analysis, aided by 

 the most eminent fanciers, actually to evibody actual decisions ; while we do not, like our predecessors, 

 assume without warrant more than personal authority, or claim for any scale of our own more 

 weight than its accuracy shall prove it really to deserve. That a far greater number of fanciers 

 have assisted in the preparation of or have revised the tables we shall give than have been ever 

 consulted over any previous scales of points, we can safely affirm ; and the almost literal adoption 

 of our only hitherto published scale by the great body of American breeders, as may be seen from 

 our chapter on Brahmas, may serve to prove at least the superiority of the more unassuming 

 method we have pursued, of endeavouring by patient analysis to deduce conclusions from the 

 actual work of our best judges, over the empirical and really far more pretentious plan of one or 

 two individuals giving under a false mask of "authority" what were really only their own views. 



We still think, therefore, that the eye and judgment of the best judges will and must continue 

 to be the final authority at poultry shows ; using " Standards," as the name implies, chiefly as 

 permanent canons to which, if correct, it may be expected that awards will in the main conform, 

 and especially not expecting that a book, tiowever perfect, can enable anybody to judge fowls, as 

 seems by some in both hemispheres to have been expected. 



Nothing, then, can ever make a judge's task an easy one ; and it is not too much to ask that 

 whatever may lighten the heavy burden of his responsibility shall be scrupulously studied. This 

 may be done in many ways. Except in very small shows, a whole clear day should be allotted for 

 the task ; and when the public are admitted, as is the practice at some large shows, care should be 

 taken that they are at least rigorously excluded from the alleys where judging is actually going 

 on. It is impossible to judge calmly in a crowd. The birds should be rather sparingly fed before 

 judging begins, especially in the Game classes, or handling them will be of little assistance. 

 The task should be begun with daylight, one or two steady men being in attendance, if possible, to 



