THE HEN FEVER. 277 



am flattered with the tone of your kind letter, just received, 

 and I am greatly pleased that you thus readily coincide 

 with me in regard to my opinions touching the fowl race. 



" I had come to the conclusion that there were but eight 

 real varieties of genuine fowls ; but I observe that, in your 

 last favor, you describe ten strains of pure-bloods, that you 

 know to be such. The portraits of your stock are beauti- 

 ful. You allude to the ' Bronze ' and the ' Dominique ' 

 colored Shanghaes. These must be very fine, I have no 

 doubt ; and I gladly embrace the opportunity to enclos^ 

 you a draft on Merchants' Bank, Boston, for six hundred 

 dollars, in payment for six of each of your splendid 

 varieties of this pure China stock, the like of which (on 

 paper, at least) I have never yet been so fortunate as to 

 meet with. 



" Please forward them, as per schedule, in care of Adams 

 & Co.'s Express; whose agents, I am assured, will feed and 

 water them regularly three times a day * on the route, 

 and who are universally proverbial for their attention to the 

 birds thus directed and intrusted to their care. I shall 

 order the ' Sufiblks ' shortly. Yours, truly. 



I sent this anxious purchaser sixty chickens, at ten dol- 



* Certainly — of course. The express agents had nothing else to do 

 but to " feed and water " fowls " three times a day " on the way ! 



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