FANCIERS’ JOURNAL AND POULTRY EXCHANGE. 
405 
turning down, instead of up, and I am informed that is a 
peculiarity of the breed. As all black-feathered fowls, the 
dressed bird is white, but as a table fowl it is excellent, in- 
clining to be always fat with ordinary feeding. 
I now will attempt to describe another breed, which I 
find in Hagerstown and other places in Washington and 
Frederick Counties, in Maryland. I was told that they 
came from Cincinnati, Ohio. These chickens are small, 
and called “ The Pheasant Chicken.” They carry up, like 
the true Pheasant, and are an irregularly spangled or laced 
bird, tolerably uniform in coloring of light and dark brown, 
with crest standing up on the head, with slight turning out 
at the apex, and are unlike either the Polish or French 
breeds ; said to be non-sitters, and remarkably constant 
layers of eggs a little under medium size. I do not see this 
variety of the Gallus family either exhibited or advertised, 
nor has it a place in the American standard. I have never- 
owned it, but am told that it breeds true. 
Would it not be well to define and describe all the known 
breeds of poultry? It would surely interest the masses of 
your patrons, perhaps more than the controversy about 
what the mechanism, of poultry ought to be under standard 
requirements. The nature of fancy is for new beauty and 
uncommon attainment. No one is long content with any 
breed, however excellent it may be. It is only the utili- 
tarian who stops satisfied with any acquisition. And, as 
this admitted (I think) tendency of our dispositions as fan- 
ciers can only be gratified in the pursuit of new varieties, it 
would be best to open the gates wide to all distinct breeds 
of poultry, so that the greatest scope may be given as well 
to the amateur as to the breeder for profit. Y. M. F. 
(For Fanciers’ Journal.) 
SICK FOWLS. 
Mr. Editor : 
I have read so many articles in the poultry papers lately 
—in yours among others — about sick fowls , roupy chickens, 
etc., and meet with the inquiry so often, “ What can we do 
to cure them ?” that I am induced to give you my mode of 
practice, which, for twenty-five years, I have found the 
most sensible and effective, as a general rule, to remedy the 
many ordinary evils complained of by young fanciers. 
Dosing these poor little creatures with the numerous nos- 
trums recommended by various writers I never could appre- 
ciate. In seven cases out of ten these extreme “allopathic” 
prescriptions will kill rather than cure; and we have evi- 
dence of this in the frequently announced fact that “ I did 
so and so, as the poultry books and experimenters advised, 
but my fowls died under the treatment,” at which result I 
nave never been surprised. 
My rule, thus far, wt^n I have found a bad case among 
my stock has been ordinarily to knock the bird on the head 
and bury it as quickly as possible, that the disease should 
not be communicated to its companions. This, in many 
cases, would be expensive, I know. But, where I have had 
diseased fowls so valuable that I desired to save them, I 
have, in cases of roup, sore head, running at the eyes and 
nostrils, drooping, “black comb,” general apparent debility, 
sogging, etc., removed such fowl at once from its mates, placed 
it in a coop upon a grass plat, washed the head, mouth, and 
throat thorougly clean with a strong solution of alum-water, 
and then administered one or two teaspoonfuls (according 
to age and size) of common whisky, into which is first 
mixed a quarter of a teaspoonful of Cayenne (red) pepper. 
Give this morning and night for two or three days, if 
needed, with light food meantime, and nine times in ten 
you may save and sensibly cure your “ sick bird.” 
Try this, gentlemen, and let us know if you do not find 
this simple prescription a useful one, as I have in many 
cases, though I confess I have never, in my long experience, 
had a great many of these “ sick fowls.” G. P. B. 
Melrose, Mass., 1874. 
THE FATE OF AN EGG-EATING HEN. 
A way to prevent hens from eating their eggs, is to fill 
an egg with a solution of pepper, and put it back in the 
nest. A Danbury man has tried this, and says it works like 
a charm. He put a pretty good dose of pepper in the egg, 
and placed it in the nest of the criminal. Pretty soon the 
hen came around and took hold. 
It was a brindle animal, with long legs, and somewhat 
conceited. It dipped in its bill and inhaled the delicacy. 
Then it came out doors. It did’t gallop, we don’t mean, but 
it came out to look at the scenery, and see if it was going 
to rain. Its mouth was wide open, and the feathers on top 
of its head stood straight up. Then it commenced to go 
around the yard like a circus horse. Once in a while it 
would stop and push out one leg in astonishment, and then 
holler “ fire,” and start on again. The other hens came out 
to look on. Soon the hens from the neighbors came over 
the fence and took up a position of observation. It was quite 
evident the performance was something entirely new and 
unique to them. There is a good deal of human nature in 
hens. "When they saw this hen dance and have all the fun 
to itself, and heard it shout “ fire,” and couldn’t see the con- 
flagration themselves, they filled up with wrath, and with 
one accord sprang upon it, and before the Danbury man 
could interfere, the brindle hen with the long legs was among 
the things that were. He says the receipt is effectual. — 
Danbury News. 
(For Fanciers’ Journal.) 
REMINISCENCES OF THE “HEN FEVER.” 
BY GEO. P. BURNHAM. 
The best abused fowl in America is the Shanghai. 
Beams of paper and quarts of ink have been expended in 
berating this bird, and thousands of amateurs and tyros in 
chicken breeding have had their flings at this Chinese fowl 
in the past quarter of a century, until the name has been 
ignored or merged into the misnomer Cochin China, and 
finally, a la mode , established “Cochin” and “Brahma.” 
In a previous article, I gave the authentic history of the 
Cochins from the Queen’s Cochin Chinas (sent from Shanghai 
in 1833), down to our own day. That these originally- 
known Cochins and the Shanghais were not an identical 
variety of fowl, is not at this day a point for question. 
They were as unlike each other as were the Games and the 
old style Creepers previously bred in the barn yards of this 
country ; one being feathered upon the legs, the other per- 
fectly smooth-limbed, etc. Still, both these varieties came 
to the United States out of stock brought direct from China 
(not India). Now, as with us, domestic poultry is bred in 
that country to-day as it has always been bred there, in the 
same loose manner that has generally so long characterized 
this work in our own land. 
All writers and visitors at Chinese ports, who take any 
