254 FOWLS. Chap. vil. 



together it forms a " cup-comb ; " in the "rose-comb" it i s 

 depressed, covered with small projections, and produced back- 

 wards ; in the horned and creve-cceur fowl it is produced into 

 two horns ; it is triple in the pea-combed Brahmas, short and 

 truncated in the Malays, and absent in the Guelderlands. In 

 the tasselled Game a few long feathers arise from the back of 

 the comb; in many breeds a crest of feathers replaces the 

 comb. The crest, when little developed, arises from a fleshy 

 mass, but, when much developed, from a hemispherical pro- 

 tuberance of the skull. In the best Polish fowls it is so largely 

 developed, that I have seen birds which could hardly pick up 

 their food ; and a German writer asserts 52 that they are in conse- 

 quence liable to be struck by hawks. Monstrous structures of 

 this kind would thus be suppressed in a state of nature. The 

 wattles, also, vary much in size, being small in Malays and 

 some other breeds; they are replaced in certain Polish sub- 

 breeds by a great tuft of feathers called a beard. 



The hackles do not differ much in the various breeds, but 

 are short and stiff in Malays, and absent in Hennies. As in 

 some orders of birds the males display extraordinarily-shaped 

 feathers, such as naked shafts with discs at the end, &c, the 

 following case may be worth giving. In the wild G-allus ban- 

 Jciva and in our domestic fowls, the barbs which arise from each 

 side of the extremities of the hackles are naked or not clothed 

 with barbules, so that they resemble bristles; but Mr. Brent 

 sent me some scapular hackles from a young Birchen Duck wing 

 Game-cock, in which the naked barbs became densely reclothed 

 with barbules towards their tips ; so that these tips, which were 

 dark coloured with a metallic lustre, were separated from the 

 lower parts by a symmetrically-shaped transparent zone formed 

 of the naked portions of the barbs. Hence the coloured tips 

 appeared like little separate metallic discs. 



The sickle-feathers in the tail, of which there are three pair, 

 and which are eminently characteristic of the male sex, differ 

 much in the various breeds. They are scimitar-shaped in some 

 Hamburghs, instead of being long and flowing as in the typical 

 breeds. They are extremely short in Cochins, and are not at 



52 < Die Hulmer und Pfauenzuclit,' 1827, s. 11. , 



