BjiEEDiNG Dark Brahmas. 26 1 



The brown colour liked by some breeders is less bred now than formerly. Those who admire 

 it should select a cock with a feiv brown feathers in the bar of the wing. The breast may be 

 considerably mottled, and so may the thighs, if the hens be darkly pencilled on the breast, but 

 tlie white mottling must be very sharp and distinct. The stripes in the hackle are generally 

 rather narrow in this coloured strain ; and the tail may either show green reflections as in that 

 first described, but darker, or a purple shade. It is also most important to ascertain that the bird 

 be of a stock breeding the desired colour ; indeed, we should consider this the most important 

 point of all. Many persons seem to consider that brown Brahmas must necessarily be crossed. 

 We certainly have seen some such birds, whose coarse, cruel-looking heads, and other points, 

 denoted a cross with the Dorking ; but many others present all the characteristics of pure-bred 

 Brahmas, and in a few years, simply by selection, this colour may be bred from the purest grey. 

 It is, therefore, more a matter of fancy than anything else. 



In selecting a cock from our own yard for breeding, we always look first to the wing, then 

 to the saddle and the tail-coverts, then to the fluff and breast. In purchasing one from another, 

 we should lay more stress upon the saddle and coverts, and pay most attention of all to the 

 colour of the birds he was bred from. With regard to the crossing of different colours, a cock 

 of the dark strain may be mated with hens of either the brown or the silver-grey, and will only 

 darken the pencilling. A cock of the brown strains, mated with hens of the two others, may give 

 pretty tolerable results, giving however brown patches, or stray red feathers, or salmon breasts, 

 to many of the pullets from silver-grey hens. A cock from a light silver-grey yard will breed 

 very few good pullets at all with hens of other colours, unless unusually dark, but will sometimes 

 produce very beautiful and clean-coloured cockerels. A cock from a really good dark blue-grey 

 strain will breed well with almost anything. And as the shades of difference are so fine, in 

 claiming a cock at any show, the purchaser should ahvays observe carefully the colour of the 

 hens or pullets shown by the same exhibitor, and only complete the transaction if that nearly 

 agrees either with his own, or at least with a permissible cross for the purpose desired. 



Dark Brahmas have on several occasions been extensively crossed with both Cochins and 

 Grey Dorkings. In the case of Cochins the Partridge variety has been usually employed, and the 

 motive, we believe, has been either to obtain darker-breasted pullets, or to recover cushion and 

 fluff when too much lost from ignorant breeding. The Cochin breast will be one sign of such 

 impurity in the blood, while the expression of the face is often very different from that of pure- 

 bred birds. But the best test is the occurrence of red feathers about the hocks or fluff of the 

 cockerels, with yellow in the hackle ; and if in addition the hens bred from the same stock 

 have red about the shoulders, the evidence will be pretty conclusive. Red or brown about a 

 pullet's breast is, however, no proof whatever of a Cochin cross, as the purest bred birds will 

 occasionally show it. 



The Dorking cross has been attempted for several objects. Some have tried the experiment 

 with a view to gain earlier growth, the Dorking being a quickly-maturing fowl, while the Brahma 

 grows late. Others have desired to improve the quality of the meat — a legitimate object enough 

 if the parentage were avowed — whilst some have hoped to improve the pencilling on the breast, 

 always the difficult point with Brahma breeders. Many exhibitors doubt the existence of this 

 cross at all ; and on one occasion, at the Birmingham Show, when we pointed out a prize pen 

 as certainly containing Dorking blood, we were met with an amount of abuse which we do not 

 wish to encounter again. But facts quite justified our assertion ; for in April of the following 

 year we had a letter from a friend who had purchased a nest of eggs from the exhibitor of that 

 \f:.rY pen, stating that one of the chicks had the well-known five claivs. Of late the taint has 



