Plymouth Rocks. 
179 
result of these enquiries are that, ' \Vhile many affirm the Cochin cross to have been employed, every 
correspondent, without exception, states that one of the parents was the Dominique Fowl,' and he adds that 
his own strong opinion is, ' That the Dominique, and also the Asiatic, being very common in America, many 
cases of crossing have occurred, and that thus the same Fowl (half Asiatic and half Dominique) has, 
probably, been produced in various quarters, and not in any one alone. However this may be, the fact that 
the modern Fowl was originally a half-bred Dominique is absolutely certain.' But from my own observation 
and experience for years with many hundreds of Rock chickens, I am convinced that a bird somewhat of 
the Langshan type of some ten years ago was used to cross with the Dominique, as a small percentage of 
chickens bred from nearly every strain of Barred Rocks which have been sent to Australia from either 
America or England show a trace of leg-feathering, and 499 out of every 500 sports thrown are entirely 
black in colour, thus emphasising the contention that the original birds used to cross with the Dominique 
must have been black, as stated by the Rev. Mr. Ramsdell. If any Cochin blood was used by the very 
early breeders, it was, most probably, the Black Cochin, otherwise some of the sports of the present day 
would be of other colours. But my opinion is, that very little Cochin blood was introduced, as if the 
originators had used much of it, Barred Rocks would show much heavier and softer feathering than is 
actually the case, and the modern bird is, when at Hberty, of a very active disposition, quite the opposite to 
the slouch and laziness of a Cochin. These results prove the strong probabiUty that the Black Java Fowl, 
used first by Mr. Spaulding, was also used by other breeders for crossing purposes in the New England 
States in the years before the type was properly fixed, much more heavily than Mr. Lewis Wright assumes ; 
and also that, though described by Mr. Ramsdell as a clean-legged bird, some few specimens, no doubt, must 
have carried a slight leg-feathering, otherwise where do the few feathers occasionally seen on the legs of an 
odd chick in every strain come from ? It may he argued that these Black Java Fowls were a cross between 
Cochins and Malays ; but Mr. Ramsdell's description of the leg colour does away with that theory, as he 
says that the legs were of a dark, slate colour, and the bottom of the feet yellow ; whereas, if they were the 
produce of a Cochin-Malay cross, the legs would have been yellow throughout. From all we can learn, and 
from the surer evidence of the present-day descendants approaching the Croad type of Langshan far more 
closely than they do the Cochin, it seems very feasible to believe that this Black Java Fowl was a bird akin 
to what a cross between the Langshan and the Malay would produce, and in all probability had some of the 
blood of both in its composition. In the early fifties many shipments were made to the States of all sorts 
and kinds of big Fowls from almost every quarter of Eastern Asia, and there can be no doubt but that these 
were crossed and re-crossed again and again, so that it is quite fair to assume that the Black Java itself was 
a cross-bred originally. I know I am treading on dangerous ground (and that by some Langshanites I will 
be accused of rank heresy) in even assuming that so long as forty years ago birds from the Langshan district 
of North China found their way to either South-eastern Asia or the States : but it must be remembered that 
at that time the ' hen fever' was booming in U.S.A., and that when the now common saw, 'Shanghai 
Roosters grow so tall, you cannot hear them crow at all,' originated, as it did about that time, in the vicinity 
of New York State, ' Yankee ' skippers were scouring the Asiatic coasts, from Corea to India, for fresh 
novelties, and taking home all sorts of new breeds of all shapes, colours, and sizes. It must not be supposed 
that the type used in the composition of the Black Java Fowl was of the same type as the present-day 
Langshan, as in cultivating length of shank and fineness of bone, breeders have lately gone to extremes 
with this breed, and produced a large proportion of 'slab-sided weeds' on stilts. But the ancestor of the 
Plymouth Rock, as exhibited in his descendants' conformation, has been a bird more approaching the 
Langshan type of some ten years ago — medium in length of shank, deeper in breast, shorter in back, and 
smaller in tail than the present-day standard. That in ages past Langshans and all Cochins sprang from 
the one common stock there cannot be much reason to doubt ; but as the two strains were bred for many 
generations under totally different environments, the fact remains that when fu st introduced to Europe and 
America they were in the form of two distinct types of the one original race, and that these types have 
become further and further apart in the hands of modern breeders is only a natural consequence. The 
