62 POULTRY BREEDING 
four varieties—Bearded \Vhite, Buff Laced and Non- 
Bearded of both these varieties. 
Miscellaneous Class.—This is made up of Silkies, Friz- 
zlies and Sultans. Silkies are fowls with soft shaftless 
plumage. The plumage is white, while the face, comb 
and wattles are a dirty purple. They are considered cf 
no importance. 
Sultans.—This breed might be called a booted Polish 
breed, as it has feathers down the shanks. It is a white 
breed of no importance. Why it is retained in the stand- 
ard of perfection no one seems to know. 
Frizzlies are characterized by the disordered appear- 
ance of their plumage. The feathers are twisted and 
turned forward in a way that makes one want to smooth 
them down. They may be white, black, red or bay, so 
long as pairs match in the show pen. Thcry are neither 
ornamental nor useful. 
Turkeys.—The turkey is the largest of our domestic 
fowls, and the only one that can be credited to America. 
To get its early history, as far as civilized countries are 
concerned, it is necessary to go back to European records. 
Until a few years it was thought that its first introduc- 
tion into Europe occurred about 1524-5, but in Brown's 
“Races of Domestic Fowls” there is a supplementary note 
saving that the librarian of the Royal Palace, Madrid, 
recently (in 1906) discovered that it was introduced into 
Spain as early as 1500, eight vears after the discovery of 
America. Pedro Nino, a Spanish adventurer, discovered 
this fowl on the coast of Cumana, north of Venezuela in 
1499, and the next vear took it to Spain along with such 
other curtositics as parrots, monkeys and bright- colored 
birds of other kinds. Turkeys were bred in great num- 
bers by the Aztecs and other nations of ATexieo and Cen- 
