FANCIERS' JOURNAL AND POULTRY EXCHANGE. 



341 



best supported, and most convincing character, may such an 

 account be disproved? and is Burnham's sufficient to dis- 

 prove it ? We can only reply that no one but Mr. Teget- 

 meier in England ever attached to any statement of Mr. 

 Burnham's the least importance whatever. Even he calls 

 his great authority "unscrupulous," as well he might after 

 the unblushing account of the motives which solely dictated 

 the 'present to her most Gracious Majesty;' and among 

 Americans themselves his book was never received with 

 anything but a laugh at what was universally understood to 

 be another attempt of the same sort at a trading puff. As 

 an instance of this general appreciation of the man, we had 

 quite recently an announcement from a valued American 

 correspondent that, ' our old friend Burnham had let himself 

 out again,' and were somewhat perplexed by the enigmatical 

 information, until the receipt of a copy of Burnham's New 

 Poultry Book, published in 1871, elucidated the mystery. 



" This second book was, in all respects, worthy of the first, 

 being a series of advertising puffs in the most approved 

 'spread eagle ' style from beginning to end ; and it especially 

 amused us to note how the author had, with a most laudable 

 regard to reciprocity, in return for Mr. Tegetmeier's unhoped- 

 for quotation of the former work, repaid the favor by 

 quoting his as ample authority on the very same point; 

 each thus referring to the other, and to the other alone, as 

 confirming his own views I It is the simple fact that not 

 one American writer (and but one English) ever regarded 

 Burnham's account as of the slightest value. "Whether the 

 latter may have bred amongst others very tolerable imita- 

 tions of Brahmas, is, as we before observed, not the question. 

 We had seen that there were two qualities of birds known 

 in the early days — one a spurious, which bred mongrel pro- 

 geny, and could be traced to Burnham ; the other pure, 

 which was always traced to Connecticut, or a little later, to 

 Dr. Bennet, who procured his from that State. 



" But such, and accounts of such, published after the pure 

 Brahmas were even publicly shown, cannot invalidate a con- 

 sistent and credible account given from the very first of the 

 genuine strain, and, as Mr. Cornish justly argues, confirmed 

 and inquired into at the time and on the spot while all the 

 witnesses were alive and available for examination. Burn- 

 ham himself states in his last work that he was a member 

 of that very committee, at Boston, which was appointed in 

 1850 to settle the name, as mentioned in Mr. Cornish's letter 

 to Colonel Weld. He says that the name was thus given by 

 them 'against his protest,' and the unavoidable conclusion 

 from that simple fact alone must be, that parties who knew 

 both considered Mr. Cornish the most reliable witness of the 

 two 



" To sum up, then : When to the foregoing conclusions 

 are added the facts that all Mr. Burnham's early Light 

 Brahmas (until, as is known, he bought through a friend at 

 Boston in 1852 some of the real strain), were single combed, 

 while the originals were triple ; that Burnham's had a dis- 

 tinct straw or buff tint, while the originals were white ; and 

 that Burnham's had the same creamy-colored fluff, while 

 real Brahmas had and still have a pearly-gray under the 

 plumage, the whole becomes clear. It is plain that there 

 was a strain of real Brahmas distinct from Cochins, or the 

 fowls then known in America as Chittagongs (we say then 

 known because our Indian friend's remark makes it far from 

 improbable that some previous importation of the Brahma, 

 or real Chittagong, had given to the fowl so-called part if 

 not the whole of its character — that our very fowl, in fact, 

 had been imported before, but from want of interest in 

 poultry so degraded as to be unrecognizable), all which were 

 traced up to the birds brought into Connecticut by Mr. 

 Chamberlain ; that Burnham having, as is clearly proved, 

 vainly tried to purchase some of this stock, bred the best 

 imitations he could, which formed another strain, always at 

 that date clearly distinguishable from the real, and well 

 known to be distinct both by himself and by others ; and 

 that, finally, he claimed for his the credit of being the 

 original birds, and unfortunately found in England what he 

 never could in America, a respectable writer who would 

 without question adopt his tale. No other conclusion is 

 hardly possible to any one who has passed in review the 

 whole evidence from which we have extracted a small part 

 in the particulars here given." 



I design, in future articles, to notice the very severe and 

 presumptuous criticisms of Mr. Burnham upon the "Buffalo 

 Convention," and the "Standard of Excellence." 



E. K. W. 



We give place to the above article from our corre- 

 spondent, "P. B. W.," who makes such copious extracts 

 from " Mr. Wright's Illustrated Book of Poultry," because 

 we are inclined to give our readers, who may not have seen 

 that work, the opportunity to read Mr. Wright's comments 

 on this long-mooted and busy question of the true origin of 

 the "Light Brahma" fowls. At the same time, injustice 

 to our correspondent, Mr. G-. P. Burnham, we are con- 

 strained to state that this theory of Mr. Wright, as we under- 

 stand it, is based upon the statements made originally in 1852 

 by Mr. Virgil Cornish, of Connecticut ; and it is but fair now 

 to quote the Cornish letter also, to show exactly what basis Mr. 

 Wright has for his remarks above quoted by "F. R.W.," and 

 our readers can judge whether the Wright theory is sustained 

 simply by this communication, adding, by the way, that its 

 date, " March 2d, 1852," was some three years subsequent to 

 the date of Dr. W. C. Kerr's letter to Mr. Burnham from 

 Philadelphia, Pa., September 3d, 1849, when he (Dr. Kerr) 

 sent to Mr. Burnham the first pair of gray fowls which Mr. 

 B. bred in Massachusetts, and which he claims were the 

 original birds whence came the Gray Shanghais he bred so 

 successfully for years afterwards, which Dr. Bennett acknowl- 

 edges he bought of Burnham in 1850 or 1851, and to the 

 progeny of which, upon exhibition at Boston (at the same 

 show where the Cornish-Hatch-Chamberlin fowls were 

 exhibited), Dr. Bennett first publicly gave the name of 

 "Brahma Pootras," afterwards abbreviated, by common 

 consent, to " Brahma." 



Mr. Cornish thus writes (and this letter -was first published 

 in 1853, some months after Mr. Burnham's fine fowls reached 

 the Queen of England, under the name of " Gray Shang- 

 hais," be it remembered). At that time Dr. Bennett in- 

 formed Dr. Wm. Custe Gwynne, of England, that his fowls 

 and Mr. Burnham's fowls sent to England " were identical, 

 precisely similar, and were bred from the same stock." All 

 this is upon the record. Mr. Cornish says, at Hartford, 

 Conn., March 2d, 1852: 



" No doubt you are acquainted with the relative position 

 of the State in India called Chittagong, and the river called 

 Brahma-Pootra. Chittagong is a small State upon the 

 eastern borders, and bounding west upon the Bay of Bengal. 

 The river Brahma-Pootra discharges its waters into that bay 

 forty or fifty miles from the western bank of Chittagong. 

 If the large, light-colored fowls came from that region — the 

 Brahma-Pootra — of which I think there is no doubt, .... 

 still I am unable to say by which name they should be called. 

 Chittagong, if I understand it, is mountainous, while the 

 country through which the Brahma-Pootra river runs is a 

 flit country, exceedingly rich. The richer the country the 



larger the production, is our rule to go by In regard 



to the history of these fowls very little is known. A mechanic 

 by the name of Chamberlin, in this city, first brought them 

 here. Mr. Chamberlin was acquainted with a sailor, who 

 informed him that there were three pairs of large, imported 

 fowls in New York. Mr. Chamberlin furnished this sailor 

 with money, and told him to go to New York and purchase 

 a pair for him, which he did, at great expense. The sailor 

 reported that ha found one pair of light gray ones, which he 

 purchased. The man in New York, whose name I have not 

 got, gave no account of their origin, except that they had 

 been brought there by some sailors in the India ships. The 

 parties through whose hands the fowls came, as far back as 

 I have been able to trace them, are all obscure men. I 

 obtained my stock from the original pair brought here by 

 Mr. Chamberlin. These fowls were named " Chittagongs " 



