92 TSE COMPLETE POULTRY BOOK. 



feather; and green legs, which, are apt to occur in this color, wiU disqualify 

 any pen, however meritorious otherwise."* This breed has suffered a wane of 

 popularity, owing largely, no doubt, to the fact that its appearance suffers very 

 much from mud oi dust. When kept on a clean lawn the White Cochin presents 

 a beautiful appearance. Mr. Hewitt is quoted by Tegetmeier as saying " the 

 best layers of Cochin fowls I ever met with were white." 



" Oiuikoo Cochins are occasionally exhibited ; they are of a grey color, each 

 feather with transverse markings resembling those on the breast of the bird from 

 which they derive their name. They are inferior in character to the other va- 

 rieties, and are not likely to come into general estimation. 



" The singular variety known as SOiy Cochins, or sometimes as Emu fowls, is 

 simply an accidental variation of plumage which occasionally occurs, and whiok 

 may be perpetuated by careful breeding. The cause of the coarse, fluffy appear- 

 ance of these remarkable fowls is to be discovered in the fact that the barbs of 

 the feathers, instead of being held together by a' series of hooked barbules (so 

 as to constitute a plane surface, as occurs in all ordinary ;f eathers), are perfectly 

 distinct; and this occasions the loose, fibrous, silky appearance from which the 

 fowl obtains its name. 



" Silky Cochins are usually inferior in size to the ordinary varieties ; they are 

 good layers and sitters, not differing in these respects from the other, specimens 

 of the breed from which they have evidently been derived." f 



"Bhis Cochins, Dommique Cochins, and Spangled Cochins, are what may be 

 termed apocryphal breeds, in distinction to the canonical ones ; that is, 

 those recognized by the Standard. They are cultivated by a few individuals with 

 a zeal and persisitence worthy of a good cause, though their efforts are looked 

 upon by fanciers generally with a distrust that ripens Into hostility whenever 

 attempts are made to procure recognition of the new breeds in the above work. 

 In the case of the Pea-combed Partridge Cochins, lately admitted to 'good and 

 regular standing' in the Standard, there was much opposition among the 

 conservatives, though the progressionists triumphed." % 



I 



BBAHUAS. 



About no question belonging to poultry has there been so much dispute and 

 wrangling as about the origin of the Brahma fowls. One party, Mr. George P. 

 Bnrnham, of Melrose, Massachusetts, claims to have produced the Light Brahma 

 by crossing a Chinese or Shanghse fowl,, called by him the Gray Chittagong, up- 

 on a Buff Cochin hen, thus making a cross between two Chinese breeds. This 

 cross Mr. Burnham called Gray Shanghse, and under that name sent a cage of 

 the birds to Queen Victoria, in the fall of 1852, as an advertisement. The fowls 

 thus Mnt to England were undoubtedly closely connected to the strain oaUed to. 

 • L „f^* ^™''™a,s," as shown by Harrison Weir's excellent iUnstration, given 

 in the "Illustrated London News" early in 1853. 



Mr. Burnham's claim of originating this breed was, however hotly disputed by 



other parties, and especially by Nelson H. Chamberlain, of Hartford, Connecfi- 



cut, who claims to have bred these, fowls as early as 1848, from a pair imported 



from China or India, and that it was from the progeny of this pair that the fowls 



♦Wright. fTegetmeier. JPoultry World, Vol 4, p 259. 



