48 POULTRY BREEDING 
Jubilee varieties have not yet been admitted to the 
American Standard of Perfection. 
The Polish Class is composed of eight varieties— 
White-Crested Black, Bearded Golden, Bearded White, 
Bearded Silver, Buff Laced, Non-Bearded Golden, Non- 
Bearded Silver and Non-Bearded White. The origin of 
the Polish fowl is lost in the mists-of antiquity. It is 
characterized by a “topknot” or “crest” of feathers cov- 
ering the top of the head. This crest grows’from a round, 
bony protuberance on the forward part of the skull, one 
of the most peculiar departures from the normal to be 
found in nature and one which has puzzled those who 
devote their time to discovering the secrets of nature. In 
the cock this crest is composed of long feathers that flow 
back over the head, making a round, rather soft mass of 
plumage. In the hen the feathers of the crest are stiffer 
and grow more directly at right angles from their base, 
making a ball-like growth, which is considered very orna- 
mental. 
Sixty or 70 years ago a crested breed known as Ham- 
burgs was bred. A crested bird is figured as a Hamburg 
in “The American Fowl Breeder,” published in 1850. 
Brown says that the breed might have originated around 
Padua, Italy, as Aldrovandi, who wrote in the sixteenth 
century, described crested fowls. Darwin called them 
“Crested or Polish breed.” The American Poultry Asso- 
ciation assumes that the breed came first from Poland, 
but it has been almost definitely decided that it did not. 
In England the breed is still called the Poland fowl. but 
it is very likely that the name comes from the “poll” 
which is the most easily distinguished feature of these 
fowls. The Polish fowl is a very good layer of large 
white eggs, but is inclined to do most of its laying dur- 
