196 



JOUBNAL OP HOBTICTTLTUBE AND COTTAGE GAEDENEB. 



[March 10, 1863. 



legitimate source of revenue to any committee to limit the 

 actual value of their silver cups to perchance but little, if any, 

 more than a fourth of the sum stated, so that the fact stands out 

 apparent, that the winner of the second prize has ultimately a 

 decided advantage over his rival, by the personal purchase of a 

 much-better-manufaetured and more weighty cnp with the pro- 

 ceeds of his second position en his return home, with, it may be 

 also, a trifling overplus into the bargain. As such malarrange- 

 ment absolutely stultifies the original intention of giving silver 

 cups as first prizes at poultry Bhows, we again repeat, the White- 

 haven Meeting has offered them a rule which is well worthy of 

 their imitation on future occasions. 



The part of the room appropriated to the exhibition of the 

 Canaries and other singing birds, was well-stored with excellent 

 specimens. 



A list of the prizetakers appeared last week. 



Belf as Mr. Shaw, of Stainland, where he finds I am not personally 

 known to the parties, or as my brother if I am known ; and thus 

 by throwing people off their guard, succeeds in most instances in 

 borrowing money under some frivolous pretext or other. He has 

 in this way duped a great many fanciers out of sums varying 

 from ha. to 30«. each. I heard of him a few weeks ago borrowing 

 money in my name in Manchester, and it is very probable he is 

 the notorious Beswick Lodge correspondent. 



If I remember rightly he is rather well built, and has reddish 

 hair and whiskers. I shall be glad if this notice will be the 

 means of stopping his supplies, and handing him over to the 

 care of the police. — S. Shaw, Stainland. 



POINTS OF MALAYS. 



In your impression of the 24th ult., a correspondent, 

 "T. B. A. Z."in his"Dottings at Devizes" said, "Some Malays 

 were there most conspicuous by their ugliness." 



I am a Malay-breeder, and should have been glad if your 

 correspondent had pointed out which were conspicuous, or 

 whether all of them were not so. There are some persons who 

 consider this class of fowls extremely ugly ; I do not. I think 

 as a class they are extremely beautiful ; but after breeding them 

 for twenty years, and having been successful at some shows, and 

 unsuccessful at others, I have yet to learn the good points of a 

 Malay, and what are its true characteristics. 



I wish there were some settled point of eminence to which 

 breeders could direct their attention. I never did, and I never 

 shall, dispute the decision of judges ; but I must say that I am 

 puzzled to know what kind of birds to breed to insure success, 

 for one judge decides to give a prize to one colour and form at 

 one show, and another judge acts differently at another show, so 

 that they appear to have no rule to go by, and " when doctors 

 differ their patients suffer." Uniformity of character, there- 

 fore, seems to be required, and how is this to be arrived at ? 

 Perhaps you or your correspondent will kindly inform me 

 through the medium of your Journal. — John Jambs Pox, 

 Devizes. 



[We agree with you, we like Malays, and we have liked them 

 for years — more than twenty. It is forty years since we first 

 knew them. There are few judges of Malays in England. One 

 of the best, if not the best, is Mr. Andrews, of DorcheBter. 

 We believe there has never been but one standard with that 

 gentleman and those with whom he mostly acts. We will give 

 our notion of what a Malay should be. The body should 

 describe three bends or bows, one from the head to the shoulders, 

 one from the shoulders to the rump, and the last from the rump 

 to the end of the tail. A Malay should have a drooping tail. 

 The comb should not be a pea comb, nor a lop comb, but a 

 hard, rough-skinned one, flattened down on the head, and per- 

 fectly tight. The eyes should be bright and pearled. The throat 

 bare, hackle very scanty ; short, hard feathers on the breast 

 dividing at the crop, which should be visible, naked, firm, and 

 red. Scanty feather iB a characteristic of the breed ; the point 

 of the wing at the side of the breaBt, and the higher joint of the 

 same wing level with the back may both be bare. The wings 

 should stand out from each Bide of the body plainly as if they 

 were carved in hard wood. There is in a good and pure Malay 

 no fluff, no plumage to hide shape, and, therefore, the body 

 tapers to a point to the tail. The hip bones are plainly visible, 

 and the strong, wide-apart legs, with round, hard thighs, and 

 large but well-proportioned knees. They should be very hard in 

 hand, and have little or no feather on the hinder parts of the 

 body. There is no fixed colour for the legs or plumage.] 



SUPEEPOSING IN STAEFOEDSHIEE- 

 IN EENFEEWSHIEE. 



-SEASON 



WAENING. 

 Allow me a few lines in your Journal to caution poultry and 

 pigeon fanciers against lending money to a young man, who has 

 been living on borrowed money and other nefarious means for 

 some time back. He called upon me more than twelve months 

 ago, but was evidently disappointed — he obtained nothing, but 

 he has since revenged himself by making too free with my name 

 in drawing money from others. His plan iB to introduce him- 



Thk following is in reply to the inquiry of " A Nobth-Staf- 

 pobdshibb Bbe-keepeb," in No. 99, page 144, as to his super- 

 posed hive. The division of a crown-board, with end openings 

 only between two sections of a storified-hive, would, doubtless, 

 to a certain extent, "affect their future welfare" by interrupting 

 the queen's free progress through both, and thereby curtailing 

 her production from what might otherwise be expected, were the 

 entire combs as open to her perambulations as when there is 

 the usual space between every bar. Then, although the stock 

 ultimately attained an altitude of four or five instead of bnt 

 ' " two storeys," such a height, rather than being a disadvantage, 

 I would give promise of weighty supers during a favourable 

 ! season. As a general rule, the roomier the stock the longer is 

 | natural swarming protracted, although the swarm is all the 

 ' larger when it comes. 



Assuming from the description of your correspondent that 

 the present upper portion of his superposed stock is but a cap, 

 or small hive — in that case he might, the stock being strong, 

 remove it filled as a super without materially retarding the 

 swarming of the stock, should the summer be good ; but as he 

 seems desirous to increase his hives, perhaps the speediest mode 

 to accomplish this would be, on the first appearance of drones, 

 during the middle of a fine day, to attach the upper hive to an 

 eke, and then invert the lower, beating up the queen, together 

 with the bulk of the inmates, and remove it then — say a mile or 

 ' so off for two or three weeks. The absent foragers, with those 

 ! left in the lower hive, would in the interim raise a young queen. 

 The last year was quite as miserable a bee one in Benfrewshire 

 i as it could possibly be in Staffordshire. The season of 1860 

 was bad, 1861 worse, and 1862 the worst the present writer has 

 any recollection of since he knew anything of bees and bee- 

 keeping. Many he remembers as enthusiastic bee-keepers since 

 ' his boyhood fed their stocks at the close of 1860, hopeful for 

 1861, fed again that season ; but in disgust let them take their 

 ! chance in 1862, trusting solely to the tolerably good month of 

 ' August at the heather, and this spring finds them totally bank- 

 rupt in the bee way. 



My own apiary at the beginning of last year consisted of six 

 : stocks — three weak, and three strong ; and, anticipating a good 

 season after two such poor ones, besides the arrival of a Ligurian 

 stock from Devonshire, I kept my favourites in tolerable con- 

 dition as the summer advanced by repeated drafts on the crushed- 

 sugar cask, but unfortunately neither the good season nor the 

 Ligurians arrived. I then turned my attention to equalise my 

 stock ; my three Btrong ones were by this time strong indeed, 

 built out, quite at suffocating-point, but they thought better of 

 it than swarm, and were consequently nearly idle. 



To remedy this I began operations first on the strongest, in a 

 Stewarton hive and eke wrought on the adapter plan, which I 

 will now describe as No. 1, beat out the inmates into a similar 

 hive and eke ; and, with the assistance of a little feeding now 

 and then, they, by the end of the season, had filled their new 

 hive with comb. Into their vacated hive I placed an unusually- 

 prolific queen, the monarch of another Stewarton-adapter which 

 had met with a misfortune and was now rated as one of my 

 weak oneB. Her subjects speedily hatched-ont the large 

 quantity of maturing brood this hive contained, and were bo 

 reinforced in consequence, that in the end Kb. 2 was, if any- 

 thing, superior to No. 1. The combs left by No. 2 I set in 

 frames, and I placed them, alternately with blank ones, in an 

 empty box under No. 3, a strong stock in a frame-hive : t.hia 

 gave them plenty of fresh air and employment in completing 

 the frames in their lower hive. 



