39—1831.] 



THE AGRICULTURAL GAZETTE. 



610 



import a e of being the ugliest of its genus. It is not 

 without : rinsic g od qualiti , though it breeds h 

 faeW than most other captive Anserinte. Mr. Edward 

 Birth w: word from Ca utta, that what is ^ 1 



jp'the "Ornamental Poultry,*' of the white-fronted 

 too*, applies equally to the bean goose, and also to the 

 mv lag and the pink-footed. The bean goose may be 

 equally "amiable, but like Wilkes, it requires a good five- 

 jaic is" start in conversation to be placed on the same 

 footing with individuals of average good looks. 



On rowing to the island, we had the pleasure of seeing 

 the nests of three pairs of bernicle geese. They were 

 all placed just at the water's edge ; their substratum 

 was a slight collection of sticks and rushes, on which 

 was laid a perfectly circular bed of grey down, in which 

 lay the eggs. The quantity of down was so considerable 

 that it looked as if both birds must have contributed to 

 its formation ; and there was no waste, no straggling 

 but all nicely packed together within a circum- 

 ference just sufficient to contain the eggs comfortably. 

 One nest contained live eggs ; the other two, four each. 

 From these I'd e r 3 Mr. Bedingfield hopes to have 10 

 or 12 goslings. When hatched, they are Left entirely to 

 the care of the parents ; who are not themselves fed in 

 any way, with corn, or otherwise, but subsist solely on 

 what they find in the park. At about three days old 

 they are caught and pinioned, and then turned adrift 

 iga'in. Otherwise they are apt to fly off', in hard 

 weather, down to the river Waveney ; and the chances 

 are that they would cross Bungay Common, around 

 which there are about as many guns as adult mal , 

 <mcc only. The f otitis descensus from Brown's river 

 to that which forms the natural boundary between 

 Norfolk and Suffolk, would have a classically unfertile 

 jrn as its consequence. Mr. Bedingfield has no 

 Canada geese now ; they are terribly cross to otlicr 

 fowl, and powerful in their crossness. They are also 

 extravagantly voracious. A 'pair of Canada geese eat 

 nearly, if not quite, as much Grass as a cow. A pair 

 of B <*eese here have not bred,' more than elsewhere ; 

 but wigeon ve bred in Ditchingham Park. • 



Although various poultry are kept on the farm, at the 

 house Jir. Bedingfield adopts the judicious plan of 

 hiring only one sort of fowl, which the reader will be 

 surprised to hear are silk fowls. These have increased 

 well, lay a sufficiency of eggs, and prove most docile 

 sitters and nurses, both for their own young, and for 

 pheasants and partridges. Some of the hens, I was 

 assured, will submit to be place 1 on a nest of eggs that 

 may happen to be found in the park, and will take to it 

 at once, and hatch it off without further trouble. They 

 ire of course so posted while in the mind to sit. In the 

 hitching boxes is a capital contrivance for preventing 

 the escape of the sitter, and the intrusion of other liens. 

 It is simply a horizontal slide across the opening, not 

 broad enough to exclude air and light, though grosser 

 wings are refused admittance. The silk fowls are of 



(lallophasis (vei Nyethemerus), and this in its turn 

 genuine Phasianu >ut in peninsula: ! ia they ax 

 the sole representatives of the phea ;roup. 



« Next, we rec prize two wild sul ieric tvpes of 



Gallus, the Indian i nd the Malayan. The first reiki 

 the ordinary domestic fowl in its comb and two lateral 

 wattles, and the nuchal hackles ; the other has a sii e 

 throat-wattle, and no neck-hackles (of which I only 

 now G. varius vel fureatus, and, from the figures, 



very 



have 



G. oeneus). 



f. u res, 

 Of the first, or Indian type, I know tin 





species, viz., G. Stanleyi (the hen of which is figured bv 

 Iferdwicke), vel Lafayettii, which is peculiar Ceylon, 

 and at once completely distinguished from the common 

 fowl by its red-edged yellow comb, and ex.: imly 

 differ* t voice in every note uttered. Many Ceylon 

 sportsmen call it the 'John Joyce,' from i: sharply 

 uttered dissyllabic crow, more analogus to the call of a 

 partridge. The form of the comb is again distim 

 and so is that of Sonneratii. This second species is | cu- 

 liar to S. India, from the Yindhya,n mountains southv ar 

 The very peculiar plumage of* the cock, and very note 

 uttered by either sex, totalh irate it from cverv 



domestic breed. I have found it, how. ver, easy i 

 render very tame, and Stanleyi al ; both interbreed- 

 ing most freely with picked domestic fowls, and tli 

 males quite as salacious as any domestic oocfc A 

 G. Sonneratii I had would atta< any human intra r 

 into the large aviary in whieli it was ke, id i If 

 among the rest, and was a fair match for any domestic 

 cock of its weight. A hybrid n cf his was equal 1 

 salacious, but unprolific, and so was a hybrid iiigl 

 however either were matched. This hybrid 1 i laid 

 many eggs that were all infertile, and so were all eg 

 that should have been vitalised by the hybrid cock 

 Lastly, the third Indian spe< s inhabits all suitable 



districts of the Ben 1 presidency, with the Burm 



countries, Malay peninsula, Java, and, I believe, Sumatra 

 and Borneo ; but Malayan specimens are deeper 

 coloured, and io far m I have seen, all from the c* - 

 ward of the Bay of Bengal want the conspicuous orna- 

 ment of the pure white cheek lappet of the Bengal 

 Jungle-fowl, in common with the Spanish domestic 

 breed, &c. ; and it is curious that this white check 

 lappet is excessively rare among the doni tic cocks of 



Bengal ; also, it is remarkable that the deli a mottling 

 or pencilling of the hen's plumage, tl h union 

 enough in English hens, is hardly ever to 1 I with 



in the domestic hens of Bengal. In the neighbour].' 



a ;ht crest of feathers. When I ha studied them 

 more I shall be able to say mor< about them, but the 

 breeding of all domest animals is here utterly i ected. 

 The feather-legged Burmese Bantams are a 

 beautiful spangled ram ; and |bc onh silky fowli 1 

 seen here {i.e. at Calcutta) were from China, or 



r Singapore : the latter with single red comb and 

 watth the former with complex rose comb (blaeldab, 

 1 think, and very short stubby beak) and a quantity of 

 livid or glauoeus blue skin in place of wattles, imparling 

 a most n mar hie appearance. 



" Oct. 11, 1850. — The foregoing someu hat desultory 

 remarks were written ff currenir calamo. This 

 morning, as luck would have it> * friend dropped in to- 



reakfaat from a long journey, who was tin man of all 

 others I wished to consult about Indian tame fowls and 

 pi ns. I have not only learned much from him 

 already, but am piw« ling with him systematically to 

 work, to collect all the well-defined breeds we can/and 

 this not onh from different parts of India and its 

 enviro ns, ba t also of the Malay countries and China. 

 Two breeds of fowls he mentions are quite new to me, 

 viz., that of the Punjab and Sindb, and that of 

 Afghanistan. The latter is a largdy whiskered bird, 



with rrinarkably Stale-like faath< The b-imer a 



moderately large fevl. i an ies the body very her mtally, 



and has tb« middle-tail bathers Ufli arched than in 

 oiln r breeds : 



the kind sometimes called Hong Kong Bantams, small, 

 short-legged, but slightly furnished with wings and tail, 

 anatomy eye very pretty. People condemn a thing 

 seen, in a dealer's cage, or an exhibition pen, which 

 they would delight in if they made its acquaintance 

 ft a country mansion. Silk fowls are not s/t ow birds ; 

 }t was with a struggle that their name was admitted 

 wto the last Birmingham List, and this year they 

 nave to crow to the tune of « Oh, no, we never mention 

 her! 51 They will probably be treated as intruders if 

 »ey presume to present themselves for extra prizes 

 amonj: the " deserving specimens of ornamental poultry.'" 



Cochin China epidemic has a little subsided 

 (and the remedy of bleeding of the purse is being boldly 

 practised on patients in the advanced stage of the com- 

 plaint), the phoenix itself would be "pooh-shoo'd" into 

 the back-ground, and refused all chance of one of Mr. 

 Ottley's beautiful medals. 



The silk fowls at Ditchingham have a slight lark-crest 

 »s well as comb. They are white, with red combs, yel- 

 low with red combs, and white with black or purple 

 combs and skin. rro -- ' - 



Till 



he 



feathers 



They have mostly slight down "or 

 on the legs. From the commixture of these, 

 •pecKted individuals have proceeded, but it is proposed 

 w sort them forthwith. The eggs of the red ones are 

 wam-coloured, of the others white. We do not quite 



ac'juiew m the treatment which silk fowls have of late 



received from the public ; and, therefore, as a great 

 r^r ° Ur readers > a f ew words shall be added 

 comnf inS t . hem and other Kttle-known fowls. The 

 arT^m ltlons are from gentlemen whose mere names 



Th« * t0 Cal1 attention to what they write. 



«€ inrst is from Mr. Edward Blyth, Curator to the 



mv nl ° Ciety ' S Museum, Calcutta. * I still adhere to 

 variefi n /? Speeting the derivation ^ all the domestic 

 Benrrni . owl » from the 1vvild s P ecie s common in the 

 ^ V" presidency and the countries to the £. and S. E. 



question is much narrowed in many ways. First 

 jJ^Hgenous geographic range of all the large galli- 

 r^ff genera is much limited. Meleagris, for instance, 

 R Jinca ; Phasianus (verus) to Middle Asia, from 



true t n! Chilla aad Ja P an 5 the golden and Amherst 

 tedix T ' and S0 with VliY0 > Polyplectron, Gallo- 



tfsi* ri s °P au > &c -> all genera comprising a plurality 

 hj J^ Cle ?" ^° grouse nor ptarmigan has its dwelling 

 tivelv ffk^** &e., on the snowy heights respec- 

 HinduK i Himala >' a ? nor > so far as known, on the 

 •euted h ° r Alta *> but are there severally repre- 



%nt an i i the MonaI ' tue T ^traogallus, or snow phea- 

 ia rpJr- . f. Serv ^ or snow partridge. So wild Gallus 



too!? rf C if , m its ^8° t0 S ' E ' Asia and lts Wmds 

 Jo n l l UlG la i'ger), or the Asiatic region of the Jlon 



• Ascending the Himalaya, it soon gives 



; the gait alaavemarkaiily pheaaant like. 



These and numerous others 1 ex^rt to prooun* ere 

 long, and shall be happy to reciprocate with yon ua 

 aending living birds." 



The teeond bit of poultry nmm- is from Mr. K. L. 

 Lajrard, brother of tlie distinguished Ninevite ditooverer. 

 It is dated, Point Pedro, Jaffna, « eylon ; Oct. «(), 18*0. 

 u The rnmplett fowl is not a wild inhabitant ot this 

 iflkud, in spite of Temminck. It is a rather rare tame 

 introduction from Cochin, I am told. 1 am sure it is 

 not found wild in these parts. It may apj lr like 

 boasting, but 1 can coi)li«l«ntly say I am more acquainted 

 with the Ceylon Fauna than any man living, and that if 

 the bird had existed wild, I must have seen it. 

 Wallikikilli is the name for the femaJ of Gallus 

 Stanleyi (Gr.\\), literally WaUJ Jungle, Kikilli hen. 



Kukulla is male, Kukullo plural. The name of the 

 Rumpkin is Choci-Kuksllo, literally Cochin fowls. The 

 same name, with the addition of the won! maha 

 (large) is given to the large Malay breed. Our true 

 v jungle cock is a noble bird with fearful spurs, 



(formerly Burmese) province of An kan, many of the as I have good cause to remember. 1 trust \ou 



tame hens are scarcely distinguishable from the wild, - - - 



and only by being a little coar r in the leg, with a 



tendency generally to greater development of comb : and 



these hens, hardly removed from the wild, are free 



breeders. Domestic cocks, of various breeds, may 



often be found to match, feather by feather, with the 



wild bird, even some of tolerably gigantic < nensions, 



of which I have had a specimen ] -reserved ; and the 



voice is absolutely that of an English game fowl : this 



is of importance, as the notes of the two other Indian 



species are so utterly different. The differenc >f 



voice among the races of domestic fowls are as nothing 



in comparison. Moreover, notwithstan ng what you 



say, the wild hen signifies aloud, after the same fashion 



as the tame one, her deposition of an egg, and thus it is 



that the eggs are occasionally found, though not very 



commonly. 



****** 



" The wild common fowl (as I must persist in denomi- 

 nating it) is, in Bengal at least, much less so I believe 

 in the Burmese and Malay countries, of much wilder 

 and more irreclaimable nature than its congeners of 

 S. India and Ceylon. It is a most difficult bird to keep 

 in captivity for any length of time. I never but once 

 succeeded, and that v 3 with three cocks who got into 

 line condition, with their combs enlarged and erect, and 





will see it some day in Lord Derby's collection. I have 

 been very unlucky hitherto, not more than three having. 



•a<-hed \ 1< n ita alive. The hen is much smaller and 

 very differently coloured ; the eg is short, obtus^ 

 weighty, and speckled like a turkey's somewhat.* 



u The Friesland fowl, called caprikukullo, is found 

 here but rarely ; the natives say the v came from Batavia 

 originally. This agrees with Temminck. 



" We have another beautiful bird which I think would 

 domesticate. It is the Tcfrao (Gallop rdix) zeylonensis 

 of i.melin, or the TetfeftO bicalearatus of Pennant 

 Abankukulla of the Cingalese [a domesticable Tetrao is 

 unique] It is an inhabitant of the jungles of tlie cold 

 mountainous interior. It i^ a bird of great 'pluck/ 

 and its two spurs would make it a formidable antago- 

 nist. This also I am trying to send to Lord Derby. 



u Lastly, the Kallu-nias-kukullo of the natives is, as 

 the name implies, a fowl with Mack 4e*h : its bones are 

 also black, and on table is a revolting looking dish. But 

 t te it ! No other fowl in this country can em pa re 

 with it for juiciness and tenderness* I never saw this- 

 fowl in Eng] id ; here it is abundant. The prevailing 

 colour of the true breed resembles a white fowl drawn 

 several times through a sooty chimney ! the skin of the 

 eye-wn es, legs — in fact all fleshy parts bearing the 

 same /< Wat hues* It is little eaten by the Europeans^ 



pretty well lost their timidity ; but I did wrong in keep- ! on account of its colour. I am, however, glad to get it 



ing them (for want of better accommodation) together on my table." 



with a G. Sonneratii, who was 'cock of the walk,' and 



monopolised the two picked common hens ; and when 



the rainy season came on, all three took ill, and died in 



the course of a few days, to my verv considerable regret, 



as you may imagine. 1 have often heard of people keep- l kind of iarm would l t )e m ?st suitable for a bull-breeding 



ing tame jungle fowls here, but, on inspection, always ! establishment. 



found them to be the very similar Arekan tame race, 

 coarser- legged, and the male with red cb k-lappets ; 

 and I suspect these, and the Malayan bird (perhaps a 

 corresponding tame race) are what have been hitherto 

 taken home for G. bankivus. Some of these tame hens 

 I have now by me ^for the future crossing with the 

 different wild species. You may rest perfectly assured 

 that there is no wild silky fowl, or feather-legged, or 

 crested, or black-skiuned, or gigantic, frizzled, &c. 



" I have not hitherto made the Asiatic breeds of fowls 

 and pigeons much of a study, but will do so forthwith. 

 I have seen no Indian tame fowls with so much of 

 the Jungle-fowl character as the English game fowls. 

 The Indian game cocks are heavy made, coarse-legged 

 birds, with the arched nape of the Chittagong, and a 

 pearly white eye. Cockfighting is in great esteem at 

 all the Musselman courts. The great Chittagong breed 

 is in high esteem for the table. The ordinary Bengal 

 fowls are not large, and a black skin is common enough, 

 with comb, wattles, &c, more or less completely 

 melanised, but so far as I have seen only among 

 females! I have often tried in vain to procure a 

 black skinned cock. The growing chicks are commonly 

 more or less nude, sometimes to a very great extent. 

 These ordinary fowls vary exceedingly in colour, have 



A BULL-BREEDING FARM. 



It may, in the first place, be as well to consider what 



uld be most suitable for a bull-breeding 

 It should neither be too small nor too- 

 large— about 200 acres of deep black loamy land would 

 suffice, at, say, 2/. per imperial acre, which, according to 

 present times and future prospects, would be a fair rent 

 for good land of this description. The number of cows 

 to be kept for breeding will be the next consideration ; 

 but, before entering into particulars, it will be necessary 

 to detail the mode of management requisite to support 

 these animals and their progeny, till sold. Forty acres 

 out of the 200 should be laid down to permanent pasture 

 — the land being first thoroughly cleaned, well manured, 

 and sown down with proper seeds ;— the otlier 100 acres 

 to be managed under a five-shift course of husbandry. 

 Under this system, there would be, in 



• » - 



• • * 



• • ■ 



New Grass 



T wo-y ear-old Grass 



\^4* * ^ ... #>• * • a • . • 



Barley and Wheat 



Turnips, Potatoes, and Tares 

 Permanent pasture 



• •• 



** • 



• • * 



••9 



• 





*•• 



... 



• •• 



••• 



• •• 



• » • 



Acre a. S3 



32 

 St 

 32 

 40 



*•• 





• • ♦ 



Acres 



*u 





The number of short-horned cows such a farm would 

 support under a certain mode of management, and 

 selling the calves at certain ages, have next to be con- 

 sidered . In order to make the trade regular and uniform, 

 a certain number must be disposed of annually. If the 



• A hen fcuriag one-fourth blood of G. tfonneretii i lays eggs 



wayto 1 single or double or complex combs, and more rely { speckled at the upper end, like a guinea-fowl' . 



