JKntLERIIC POULIBT. 



found to be no better than it Bhonld, or nature intended 

 it to be. A, writer in tbe Pcyidiey Ohromcle says : — " These 

 fowls were sent to provide food for mam ; by many they are 

 not thought good table-fowls, but, when others fsiH, if you 

 keep them, you shall never waat the luxury of a really 

 new-laid egg on your breakfast-table. The snow may fall, the 

 frost may be thick on your window, when you first look out on 

 a December morning, but your Ooohiii will provide you eggs. 



" They are fallen in price becanse they were unnaturaUy 

 exalted, but their sun is not echpsed — they have good qualities 

 and valuable. They shall now be within the reach of all, and will 

 make the delight of many by their domestic habits, which wiU 

 allow them to be kept where others would be an annoyance." 

 "They have fallen in value as absurdly as they rose," says 

 Miss Watts; "but they have been bred so completely with 

 an eye to mere fa/ncy quaUUes, that it is as difficult to get 

 a really good well-formed cock or hen as when an absurdly 

 high price was a bar to purchasing. A great hue and 

 cry has been raised against them as fowls for the table, 

 but I believe none have bestowed attention on breeding 

 ithem with a view to this valuable consideration. Square, 

 compact, short-legged birds have been neglected for a certain 

 colour of feather, and a broad chest was given up for the wedge- 

 form, at the very time that that was pronounced a fault in the 

 fowl. It is said that yellow-legged fowls are yellow also in the 

 skin, and that white skin and white legs accompany each other, 

 but how pertinaciously the yellow leg of the Cochin is adhered 

 to; yet all who have' bred them will attest that a little careful 

 breeding would perpetuate white-legged Cochins. Exhibitions 

 are generally excellent, but to this fowl I think they have only 

 been injurious by exaggerating useless and fancy qualities at 

 the expense of tiiose which are solid and useful. Who would 

 fajrour, or even sanction, a Dorking in which size and shape, 

 and every property we value in them, was sacrificed to an 

 endeavour to breed to a particular colour P and this is what wo 

 have been doing with the Cochin-China." 



The Cochin is a very hardy bird and a capital layer, giving 

 us eggs when they are most expensive, and indeed, with regard 

 to new-laid eggs, when they are almost impossible to be got at all. 

 The chickens of such healthy fowls are, of course, easy to rear. 

 A good Cochin should be compactand large and square-builtf 

 with a full chest and broad hinder quarters. In the " Hen- 

 wife," a little work purporting to be a correct aoooun'j of the 



