cocker's manual. 79 



several other mains, was allowed by good judges to be the most clever 

 and terrific fighter ever seen in a pit, often taking his cock and flying 

 screaming across the pit with him, dropping him as dead as a knocker 

 with kicking enough to kill a dozen. But in whatever company his 

 cocks fell it was a foregone conclusion that considerable more than 

 half their opponents would never fight again. Indeed whole mains 

 have been fought against them without scoring a single battle. Sam 

 Chifney, the famous racing jockey, had some of the breed, but he 

 crossed them and so spoiled them. It would be very easy to mention 

 scores of other noted strains that have fought their way into notoriety, 

 as Dr. Waiys, of Leicester, the Cumberland Muffs, Isle of Wight Yel- 

 lows, the Devonshire Tassels, and Cornish Hennies, but we have 

 already far exceeded our space, and will just state the colors most 

 valued in the pit in its palmy days of half a century since. Not that 

 we are color fanciers. A good cock cannot be a bad color, yet no 

 one will deny but that a set of full brothers of similar shape, feather, 

 constitution and fighting qualities are much more desirable in a main 

 than birds bred without any rule or uniformity whatever. Some will 

 be good, some bad, and some indifferent. The principal colors of 

 birds used for the pit were as follows : i, black-breasted dark reds ; 2 

 brown -breasted light reds; 3, black-breasted birchen Duckwings ; 4 

 brown-breasted berry birchens ; 5, Piles; 6, black-breasted silver 

 grays; 7, smock or shaded-breasted mealy grays; 8, black- breasted 

 dark gray; 9, ginger-breasted reds ; 10, blacks ; 11, brass-backs; 12, 

 spangles; 13, smocks or whites ; 14, duns, and although some were 

 esteemed more than others in different localities, their merits were 

 pretty generally accepted in the order named. The first named is the 

 old true BlackRed of the cock pit, for a description of which we ac- 

 cept the best known and acknowledged authority in England, who has 

 bred and fought more cocks for upwards of fifty years than any other 

 man, is that the bird in question should be a clear, vivid red extend- 

 ing from the hackle to the extremities ; the red upon the hackle above 

 and black beneath ; the upper converse side of the wing equally red 

 and black, even though surrounding the posterior ; the whole of the 

 tail feathers, the tips of the wings, the breast, beak and legs, black. 

 The hen, dark partridge color, with bright red hackle above and black 

 beneath, clean brick-breasted and such to the posterior, with black 

 beak and legs. If a Black Red has any other color than black and red 



