THE DOMESTIC FOWL. 63 



do not lay quite so early in the spring as some varieties, 

 especially after a hard winter ; but they are exceedingly 

 good layers, continuing a long time without wanting to 

 sit, and laying rather large, very white sub-ovate eggs. 

 They will sit, however, at length, and prove of very 

 diverse dispositions ; some being excellent sitters and 

 nurses, others heedless and spiteful. The chicks, when 

 first hatched, are dull, black, with white breasts, and 

 white down on the front of the head. They do not 

 always grow and get out of harm's way so quickly as 

 some other sorts, but are not particularly tender. 



In rearing a brood of these fowls, one may observe 

 some of the hens with crests round and symmetrical as 

 a ball, and others in which the feathers turn all ways, 

 and fall loosely over the eyes ; and in the cocks, also, 

 some have the crest falling gracefully over the back of 

 the head, and others have the feathers turning about 

 and Standing on end ; these are to be rejected, the chief 

 beauty of the sort depending on such little particulars. 

 One hen, noticed by Mr. Dixon, laid just a hundred 

 eggs, many of them on consecutive days, before want- 

 ing to incubate ; after rearing a brood successfully, she 

 laid twenty-five eggs before moulting in autumn. 



The Black-topped White Polish are now, it seems, 

 run out in England, if, indeed, there is any evidence of 

 their having ever existed there. Buffon mentions them 

 as if extant in France in his time. These and the 

 " Shackbags" are probably recoverable only by importa- 

 tion from Asia. 



The Golden Polands are sometimes called "gold 

 spangled," but surely not correctly, because, although 

 the bird has spots, those markings are not universal, but 

 many of the finest specimens have the feathers merely 

 fringed with a darker color, and the cocks, much more 

 frequently than the hens, exhibit a spotted or spangled 

 appearance. Many of them are disfigured by a muff 

 or beard; but no such birds should be allowed the 

 entree to the poultry yard, but be dispatched at once to 

 the fatting coop. 



The golden Polands, when well bred, are exceedingly 



