Laced Baxtams. 469 



Tuesday in Februan', in Brick Lane, but has been of late years transferred to the Gray's Inn 

 Coffee House, Holborn, where it has always been the custom to admit strangers, on apphcation, 

 after the award of the judges. The club is essentially private, and all members must be proposed 

 and seconded by a member, and afterwards ballotted for. The annual subscription for the Golden 

 is two guineas, and the same for the Silvers, which forms the amount of prizes. Each bird must 

 be the bond-fide property of the exhibitor, bred by him, and under a year old. The cocks are 

 allowed twenty-two ounces, the hens eighteen ounces. The cocks must have no long hackles, no 

 saddle-feathers, no streamers in the tail ; they must have rose-combs, short backs, heads and tails 

 approximating ; their ground colour, whether Gold or Silver, must be clear, and every feather 

 delicately laced (never spotted) with pure black. The tail-feathers should form no exception in 

 their lacing (but this will be very seldom seen), and the bars on the wings should be black and 

 distinct. The same rule applies to the hens.' " 



The Laced Bantam is of two varieties, called respectively Gold and Silver, from the ground 

 colour of the plumage, which should be a golden-bay in one case and clear white in the other. In 

 perfect specimens every feather, including the neck-hackles (or rather feathers, for the cock has no 

 true hackles), the wing-secondaries, the tail-feathers, in fact with no exceptions whatever except 



Fig. 98. — TAIL-fEAlHEK Ul- L.\ChiJ iJAMTAM. 



the primary quills or flights, which are not seen, is laced or margined all round with black, as 

 shown in Fig. 97. The accuracy of this marking in good birds is extraordinary and produces a 

 most beautiful effect. The flights in Golden birds are usually of a darker shade in the ground 

 colour, with sometimes a little grey shading on the inner web, and almost always a little lacing 

 towards the end, but rarely more. In Silvers, the primaries usually show rather more black or grey. 

 The feathers most apt to fail in lacing are those of the tail. We have seen birds laced perfectly 

 even here, but almost always the lacing of the tail-feathers is rather thin up the sides, as in the tail- 

 feather shown in Fig. 98, which is plucked, as were the others, from one of Mr. Lcno's birds. Such 

 a tail as here drawn would be considered very good indeed ; and it is regarded as allowable for an 

 otherwise excellent bird to have the tail-feathers only nicely tipped, but the farther the marking 

 extends up the sides of the feather the better. 



The Sebright Bantam has a rose-comb, which should be as neat as possible, though this is 

 always a difficult point. The comb, wattles, and face are of a purple or livid colour, and the deaf- 

 ears are supposed to be white, but it is more than doubtful if such were ever yet seen on good speci- 

 mens. So long ago as 1853, Mr. Hewitt, at that time a celebrated breeder of Sebright Bantams, 

 wrote on this point in Messrs. Wingfield and Johnson's " Poultry Book : " — " In the Sebright 

 Laced Bantams, I have yet to see a specimen in which the ear-lobe is perfectly white ; for although 

 so many have been bred by myself in the last twenty years, all that I have yet had were blushed, 

 and many perfectly red in tlie ear-lobe. I freely admit that I should prefer the white, but feel 

 confident that it is not to be generally, if ever, obtained. I have also invariably noticed that any 



