< J^^ACK AND Cuckoo Cochixs. ' 22J 



and sand mixed with lime, as I can get, and by so doing find no difficulty in keeping them very 

 clean and healthy. The sand should be pretty sharp, and if it has been washed it would be all the 

 better ; while a little of the lime with it helps to keep the whole very dry and sound 



" The above are the chief points my experience has taught me to attend to in breeding White 

 Cochins, and m order to keep them in good health and condition." 



We may add to the above remarks, that there is a strain of White Cochins which shows a 

 reddish tinge through the plumage independent of any coloured sand. Such birds should be either 

 rejected or bred from with ve^^ great caution. It is also very questionable whether lime should be 

 used in the dust-bath, as here advised. It undoubtedly promotes health to do so, but it injures the 

 plumage, and Mr. Hewitt is very strongly against it. '• My own experience as to lime given to 

 white Cochins to bask in, or white fowls of any kind," he says, "is that it decidedly tends to 

 produce the yellow tinge so highly objectionable in white birds; and I have, therefore always 

 scrupulously avoided it. The grand pair of four-year-old Whites with which, many years back 

 I took precedence in a very severe competition at Birmingham, /.^^ nefer been tvashed at all the 

 only appliance used being perfectly clean drift-sand from the lanes as a dust-bath, yet their colour 

 and condition were unexceptionable." 



BLACK COCHINS.-In the days of the Cochin " mania," splendid specimens were shown of 

 this variety, but since then it has become nearly extinct. One reason for this was the fact that 

 the cocks in their second year almost always acquired a number of reddish or golden feathers 

 particularly in the hackle and wings, as is now the case with the black Crevecceur. This dis-usted 

 breeders, who did not understand then so fully as now that patience and skill would have ove'^come 

 the difficulty, and given us a variety of very great beauty. All the specimens we have seen of late 

 have been very "weedy," stilty, and comparatively bare-legged ; but we know one or two fanciers 

 who mean to make an attempt at reviving this splendid breed as soon as they can secure passable 

 stock, and hope to see the object accomplished before long. There is, in fact, a good prospect 

 for any amateur in this direction, as quite mediocre specimens very often take prizes in the "any 

 variety class at English shows, and we are perfectly sure that any even fairly good birds 

 would literally "carry all before them." No experimental rules for attaining this object can be 

 given, for reasons already stated ; but the plan of proceeding would be to breed as largely as 

 possible from the best specimens obtainable-if possible rearing one or two hundred chickens 

 From such a number a few birds could probably be selected presenting the Cochin characters very 

 ia.rly ; and then the work would go on by carefully selecting stock that showed good width saddle 

 or cushion, leg-feather, and the greatest possible freedom from red or golden feathers. Black and 

 white being to a great extent interchangeable colours, a cross from a fine zvhite Cochin hen mi^ht 

 be tried with advantage to give substance and quality; and we believe that by putting only one 

 white hen in a run, and dyeing her black, the white might be bred out again without difficulty. 



CUCKOO COCHINS.— This variety is occasionally shown, but has little to recommend it 

 The colour may be easily gathered from our plate of the American Dominiques : the shape and 

 other points should be as near as possible to good Cochins. We believe this variety to have been 

 produced by crossing with the Scotch Grey breed, which is of the same " Cuckoo" or Dominique 

 marking as we have never yet seen birds that showed the true Cochin characters in perfeetion. 

 1 his fault might be easily remedied in a few years by judicious selection of stock, and the colour 

 can be bred without any difficulty, this marking having a very strong, or, as Mr. Darwin calls it a 

 prepotent tendency to transmit itself to progeny ; but, as we have already remarked, the result' is 



