FANCIERS' JOURNAL AND POULTRY EXCHANGE. 



147 



(For Fanciers' Journal.) 



MARTINS. 



In the Fancier for February 19, the question is asked, 

 "How to encourage martins to take possession of bird- 

 boxes ?" The answer is one of those simple things that 

 makes us smile at our want of thought. In the early spring 

 the blue birds first arrive, and take possession of all the 

 boxes they have been in the habit of occupying from year 

 to year, and also all of the new boxes that have been erected. 

 The martins, arriving later in the season, return to their 

 old nests, dislodging any intruders, or put up with such 

 habitations as they can find unoccupied, or which they can 

 drive other birds from. If, therefore, blue birds first occupy 

 a new box, they will have eggs or young by the time the 

 martins arrive, and it is difficult for the last to inspect and 

 determine upon a box that may have been erected for them; 

 but, if the box is kept closed until the blue birds are settled, 

 and only thrown open when the martins arrive, there will 

 be no difficulty, for after the martins once take possession of 

 a haunt, no other birds can inhabit it in peace. It is dis- 

 tressing as well as amusing to watch the return of martins 

 to their accustomed home, when that home has been pre- 

 empted by blue birds. They attack the housekeeping blues 

 with the utmost ferocity ; some dragging out the intruders 

 by main force, while others roll out eggs, young, and nests, 

 making a clean sweep of all their housekeeping parapher- 

 nalia; therefore keep your boxes closed until the martins 

 arrive, and there will be no trouble. 



Dr. W. P. Morgan. 



ON SELECTING FOWLS. 



Game fowls have always been especial favorites of mine, 

 not on account of their pugnacious qualities, although I do 

 admire genuine courage whether it be in animal or man; 

 and no breed of fowls set off an exhibition-room so well (we 

 might perhaps except the Hamburgs) as the different va- 

 rieties of game fowls. Taking them singly or together, 

 there is much to admire in the different strains ; one fancier 

 breeds for weight and size, another for feather and color of 

 legs, and so on to the end of the chapter. The colors and 

 markings of the game fowl vary more perhaps than any other 

 known breed; for instance, we have the Derby or Black, 

 Red, Brown Bed, Sefton, Irish Gray, Pile (or Pied) Ginger, 

 White, and in fact there is hardly a breeder but what has 

 some variety or strain peculiar to himself. These sub- varieties 

 are the result of a system of crossing, which to mv mind 

 tends very much to deteriorate from the beauty of the original 

 stock. They may do very well for pit purposes or to take 

 the place of the bull dog in a farm-yard, but I doubt very 

 much if their fighting qualities are increased by the crossings 

 above referred to. Where do you find anything more 

 handsome than a trio of genuine Earl Derby Games, or 

 what more beautiful than a clutch of little chicks from the 

 same? Then imagine a crossfrom your beautiful Derby Cock, 

 with a six or seven-pound hen, which your neighbor 

 O'Callahan says was bred from a cock that won three battles 

 in one day, or a cross between your delicate little hens and 

 a big uncouth, topknot rooster, whose father Mr. Mull- 

 doon tells you whipped the father of O'Callahan's chicken 

 in four consecutive battles. If there is any advantage to be 

 gained by such intermingling of blood, I have up to the 

 present time failed to see it. I am sure it does not add to 



their beauty, and as far as the fighting qualities are con- 

 cerned, I have seen a better fight made by a fourteen-pound 

 Brahma, than I ever saw made by what the cock-fighters 

 term shakes. Game fowls more than any other breed 

 (perhaps) possess all the qualities which would make them 

 a valuable fowl for the farmer. They are good layers, fine 

 table fowls, and as form others, can't be beat, and even in 

 towns or the outskirts of large cities, a cock and half dozen 

 hens might be kept to good advantage. 



My advice to amateurs or fanciers of game fowls,, is to 

 procure the best and purest that can be had, and keep them 

 so. Cross an Irish Gray with a Sefton, and you have dung- 

 hills good enough to lay eggs and eat corn ; so would the 

 progeny of a dark and light Brahma or a White and Gray 

 Dorking. 



Thomas S. Armstrong. 



Trenton, N. J. 



CONTRARY CHICKENS. 



Mr. Coblejigh, of Nelson Street, bought three hens Sat- 

 urday night, and put them under a box until he could build 

 a coop. Sunday morning he saw one of them in the street, 

 and bestowing a brief curse on the somebody who had over- 

 turned the box and jeopardized his property, he started out 

 after it to drive it back into the yard. It took fifteen min- 

 utes to convince him that that hen could not be driven into 

 that yard, and then he attempted to catch it. Three times 

 he rose up with his hands full of feathers and his chin full 

 of sand, but still that hen eluded him. Once he got it cor- 

 nered, and thought sure he had it, but it flew straight up over 

 his head and flapped its wings in his face, and filled his eyes 

 with dust. 0, how mad Mr. Cobleigh was. It was Sunday 

 morning. The bells were ringing, people were starting to 

 church, and there he was in the street, with no coat or hat 

 on, and with nothing but slippers on his feet, and every once 

 m a while one of them would come off and fly through the 

 air, and his naked foot would come in contact with the cruel 

 gravel before he could stop himself. Then he would have to 

 hop back on one foot after that slipper, while the hen stood 

 on the walk and elocuted, and the little Sunday-school chil- 

 dren stopped and laughed, and their parents reproved them 

 and laughed too. 



Finally the hen got away from him and started down the 

 street at a wonderful speed for a hen, and he started after 

 her, his face redder than ever, and every time he cleared a 

 rod he would stop and hop back two after one of those slip- 

 pers. When he reached the corner of Essex Street he 

 jumped out of both slippers at once, but instead of stopping 

 to go back he picked up a stick of wood and kept on. Then, 

 as the hen dodged into a gateway, he hurled the stick and 

 broke the leg of a strange dog, which added its piercing 

 " ky-yi " to the entertainment. But Cobleigh didn't stop. 

 He tore into the yard after his property, in his bare feet, and 

 chased the hen into a wood pile, and caught it just as the 

 owner of the premises came out and wanted to know what 

 Cobleigh was going to do with his hen, and what he meant, 

 any way, by getting drunk and kicking up such a hullabaloo 

 in a peaceful neighborhood. Cobleigh first thought he would 

 knock the man down with an ax, and what he could not eat 

 of him bury under a barn, but the new comer succeeded in 

 proving to Cobleigh that the hen was his, and then the mis- 

 erable man burst into tears, and limped back home, where 

 he found the three hens under the box. — Danbury News. 



