THE HBN FEVER. 101 



TO H. M. G. MAJESTY, 



iittnria, 



QUEEN OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



To be Delivered at Zoological Gardens, 



LONDON, ENG. 



^ FROM GEO. P. BURNHAM, BOSTON, MASS., U. S. A. 



The fowls left me in December, 1852. The London 

 Illustrated News of January 22d, 1853, contained the fol- 

 lowing article in reference to this consignment : 



"By the last steamer from the United States, a cage of 

 very choice domestic fowls was brought to Her Majesty 

 Queen Victoria, a present from George P. Burnham, Esq:, 

 of Boston, Mass. The consignment embraced nine beauti- 

 ful birds — two males and seven pullets, bred from stock 

 imported by Mr. Burnham direct from China. The fowls 

 are seven and eight months old, but are of mammoth pro- 

 portions and exquisite plumage — light silvery-grey bodies, 

 approaching white, delicately traced and pencilled ' with 

 black upon the neck-hackles and tips of the wings and 

 tails. The parent stock of these extraordinary fowls weigh 

 at maturity upwards of twenty-three pounds per paii"; 

 while their form, notwithstanding this great weight, is 

 unexceptionable. They possess all the rotundity and 

 beauty of the Dorking fowl ; and, at the same age, nearly 

 double the weight of the latter. They are denominated 

 Grey Shanghaes (in contradistinction to the Red or Yellow 

 Shanghaes), and are considered in America the finest of 

 all the great Chinese varieties. That they are a distmct 

 race, is evident from the accuracy with which they 

 9* 



