IV 7 
Preface. 
required to be both recorded and represented. The time has come to disentangle the 
Langshan from the maze of personality and misrepresentation in which it has been 
involved by interested partisans, and to place its true history and character on record. 
Other breeds, including some quite new ones, have come to the front; and it has been 
necessary to treat Plymouth Rocks, Wyandottes, Orpingtons, and others, with the 
same careful attention to points of breeding which has always been sought in this work. 
Much more is now known about the treatment of diseases. All these, and other matters 
of less magnitude, have received full and careful attention in the present edition. 
The schedules for judging have also required and received careful revision ; the 
changes in opinion and practice as regards vulture-hocks, for instance, being fully 
recorded. Otherwise and in the main, those scales still retain their value. Other 
standards, completed in America, and slowly emerging with rather limited authority in 
this country, have not only adopted their leading principle, never before employed, of 
tabulating defects ; but the history of every such standard demonstrates — what is indeed 
generally acknowledged — that in nearly every variety we have dealt. with, our own table 
has formed the foundation and starting-point for the new. In some cases, alterations in 
figures have been due to real changes in judging, as recognised in the present revision ; 
but, whilst it would be too much to hope that no point has escaped us, in others we 
still adhere to our own, and are convinced (upon adequate grounds) that figures as 
modified in committee by comparing mere opinions, will upset any actual present 
judging a great deal more than the framers have realised. Until this has hap- 
pened, therefore, we believe our own analysis will still be found the more trustworthy 
guide in the majority of breeds. 
And so we commit this last revised edition of the “Book of Poultry” to that 
same kindly fraternity from whom the author has received so much kindness, and by 
whom his past efforts to serve them have been so cordially received. It is pleasant 
for any author to know that the work to which he put his hand so long ago, still holds 
its ground, and is valued and referred to as much as ever. It was very pleasant, on 
turning over its pages, to see how many of the authorities quoted in it are still alive 
and household words in the “fancy,” and to remember that nearly every one of such is a 
personal friend, to whom some kindly recollection attaches. It has been pleasant, from 
close and necessary occupation in widely different pursuits, to turn fixed attention 
once more to a former hobby, and to evolve from that inner consciousness acquired 
by long personal experience and study, how, eg ., a Wyandotte ought to be judged and 
bred, if all we once learnt is not a delusion and a snare. It has brought back the very 
feelino- of every latch on our old fowl-house doors, and the smell of the meal tub and 
the corn-bin, and a thousand remembrances, nearly all of a pleasant kind. May 
similar pleasant memories, in due time, be accumulated by the reader. 
July , 1890. 
