42 THE DOMESTIC FOWL. 



English writer, nearly in the following words . — " The 

 cook is a large-sized bird, of a dark-red color, with a 

 small eomb ; but the beauty of the breed is with the 

 hens, which are of a pheasant-color in all parts of the 

 body, with a velvety-black neck. The shape of both 

 male and female is good. The neck is long and high- 

 crested, giving them an appearance quite superior to 

 other fowls in that particular. The color of the hens 

 varies from the warmth of the plumage of the cock 

 pheasant to the colder hue of the hen pheasant, but as 

 I have always bred from the high-colored birds, I now 

 have the better color generally predominating. The 

 legs are white, and also the skin. They are excellent 

 birds on table, both as to quality, shape, and size. 

 They have no resemblance to the Malay, except that 

 the cocks are rather high on the legs, the hens being 

 the reverse. The combs of the hens are very small. 

 The hens never have a foul feather, but I have never 

 seen a cock which does not show some*small mark 

 of white on one of his tail feathers. You will observe 

 in the hens of the pheasant-Malay that the two longest 

 tail feathers are somewhat curved, which, when the 

 bird is full grown, and in full feather, materially 

 improve the appearance. They do not arrive at their 

 full size until the second season. They lay well, but 

 late. Their eggs are very small in proportion to the 

 size of the birds. I should say that their weight was., 

 on the average, above that of the black Spanish, while 

 their eggs are a third smaller. **###_ Th e 

 hens have scarcely any comb. The cocks always have 

 a comb extending but a very little way backward, but 

 standing up so high as always to fall a little over on 

 one side. I have never seen any variation as to the 

 combs nor the color of the neck and tail feathers, either 

 of males or females, which indicates them to be a real 

 variety. The only variation I have observed is in the 

 body color of the hens, and this is not in the marking, 

 but merely in the ground color. * * * * * The 

 «ggs are quite small, but of excellent flavor, neither 



