Chap. VH. DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE BREEDS. 249 



a paler variable buff; and Games a still paler buff. It would appear 

 that darker-coloured eggs characterise the breeds which have lately- 

 come from the East, or are still closely allied to those now living 

 there. The colour of the yolk, according to Ferguson, as well as of the 

 shell, differs slightly in the sub-breeds of the Game, and stands in some 

 degree of correlation with .the colour of the plumage. I am also informed 

 by Mr. Brent that dark partridge-coloured Cochin hens lay darker coloured 

 eggs than the other Cochin sub-breeds. The flavour and richness of 

 the egg certainly differ in different breeds. The productiveness of the 

 several breeds is very different. Spanish, Polish, and Hamburgh hens 

 have lost the incubating instinct. 



Chickens.— As the young of almost all gallinaceous birds, even of the 

 black curassow and black grouse, whilst covered with down, are longi- 

 tudinally striped on the back,— of which character, when adult, neither sex 

 retains a trace,— it might have been expected that the chickens of all our 

 domestic fowls would have been similarly striped. 39 This could, however, 

 . hardly have been expected, when the adult plumage in both sexes has 

 undergone so great a change as to be wholly white or black. In white 

 fowls of various breeds the chickens are uniformly yellowish white, passing 

 m the black-boned Silk fowl into bright canary-yellow. This is also 

 generally the case with the chickens of white Cochins, but I hear from 

 Mr. Zurhost that they are sometimes of a buff or oak colour, and that 

 all those of this latter colour, which were watched, turned out males. The 

 chickens of buff Cochins are of a golden-yellow, easily distinguishable from 

 the paler tint of the white Cochins, and are often longitudinally streaked 

 with dark shades : the chickens of silver-cinnamon Cochins are almost 

 always of a buff colour. The chickens of the white Game and white 

 Dorking breeds, when held in particular lights, sometimes exhibit (on the 

 authority of Mr. Brent) faint traces of longitudinal stripes. Fowls which 

 are entirely black, namely Spanish, black Game, black Polish^and black 

 Bantams, display a new character, for their chickens have their breasts 

 and throats more or less white, with sometimes a little white elsewhere. 

 Spanish chickens also, occasionally (Brent), have, where the down was 

 white, their first true feathers tipped for a time with white. The pri- 

 mordially striped character is retained by the chickens of most of the 

 (*ame sub-breeds (Brent, Dixon); by Dorkings; by the partridge and 

 grouse-coloured sub-breeds of Cochins (Brent), but not, as we have 

 seen, by all the other sub-breeds ; by the pheasant-Malay (Dixon), but 

 apparently not (at which I am much surprised) by other Malays. The 

 following breeds and sub-breeds are barely, or not at .all, longitudinally 

 striped; viz. gold and silver pencilled Hamburghs, which can hardly be 

 distinguished from each other (Brent) in the down, both having a few 



, f# fvl ^Jf^'^Ts Whicl1 is ver y ** *■■ Mr. Tegetmeier. I will in each 



I r 'Ortlti J^?* Mr. Dixon's within brackets. For the chickens 



Ornamental and Domestic Poultry.' f white Silk-fowls, see Tegetmeier's 



ca ted /„ ™ h f . a H° C ° mimmi - ' Poultj T Book/ 1866, p. 221. 



cated to me many facts by letter, as 



J 



