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Chapter XXXIV. 
SPANISH. 
The Spanish Fowl appeals strongly to the genuine Fancier as exhibiting the highest type of good breeding, 
ranking among the very oldest of existing races of our Domestic Poultry. The history of this breed can be 
traced in an unbroken line for centuries, while their powers of prepotency, great merit, and characteristic 
traits have descended to us through generation and generation. No breed of Poultry will improve the Black 
Spanish by crossirtg. Even a violent cross with one or other of old-established breeds, such as the Malay, 
will have little effect in smothering the strongly-marked traits of the Spanish. It is this stubborn fact which 
has kept the breed's purity unsullied for so long. In every feature is their high breeding shown. Their 
haughty bearing, brilliant red combs and wattles, the white face and lobes peculiar to themselves, in combi- 
nation with their brilliant glossy-black plumage throughout, render them the most striking, as well as the 
most distinctively thoroughbred, of our Domestic Poultry. Their ancient lineage has gained for them the 
title of " the Aristocracy of the Poultry World ; " but the appearance of many other varieties, some of them 
offshoots of the Spanish themselves, has led to a crusade against the breed, with the natural consequence 
that they are now, without exception, " the most abused breed of Poultry." The greater portion of the 
objections raised against their merits are caused solely by the breeding to exaggerated and arbitrary Standards, 
the true merits of the Fowl being sacrificed for purely imaginary virtues. 
With the Spanish Fowl, it being a Utility breed, we are distinctly averse to the sacrificing of Utility 
virtues for mere Fancy Points, as if the latter are unaccompanied by practical merit, the popularity is short- 
lived. But that, apart from the continual improvements the Fancier is desirous of making in every breed, 
and which experiments have been carried to the bounds of absurdity in the case of the Spanish Fowl, it 
becomes astonishing that the intrinsic merits of the breed have for such a length of time maintained a longer 
existence than any other variety, surviving the continual changes of fashions which are brought about by 
every new candidate for popular favour. 
The hens possess a high reputation as egg-producers. The pullets generally begin laying at about six 
months old, and, taking into consideration the size of the eggs and the number produced, are scarcely 
surpassed by any other breed. 
It is as a cross for producing stock for egg-production that the Spanish Fowl stands pre-eminent. The 
cocks are invaluable for this purpose. The prepotent force, concentrated as it is by centuries of high 
breeding, works a phenomenal change in the desired direction in a single season. 
We can conscientiously state that for the general town or suburban Fancier, who requires an attractive- 
looking Fowl, and one whose plumage will not soil to any extent by the ordinary surroundings of limited 
space, moderate accommodation, and want of a grass plot, yet, withal, a good laying breed, and a moderate 
table bird, that the Spanish Fowl is almost unequalled. We do not mean the huge, flabby-combed, half-blind, 
white-faced specimens too often seen in our Show pens ; but the graceful, active birds bred on opposite lines 
to their Exhibition brethren, practical qualities being the prime consideration for their existence. Specimens 
bred on Utility lines will quickly remove the prejudice now existing as to the breed being delicate, and purely 
ornamental, and show conclusively that for a general purpose Fowl there is no variety better adapted to prove 
a source of pleasure and profit than the White-faced Black Spanish. 
The breed, being one of the very oldest varieties of pure-bred Poultry, takes rank with the Dorking 
and Game in being bred pure long before the advent of Poultry Shows. Its popularity as an egg-producer 
has to a great extent declined within the last thirty years, owing to the cultivation and improvement of many 
