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CHAPTER XV 111 
COCHINS. 
I r is often stated that the origin of this breed, and its first appearance in England, are alike to be 
traced to some fowls imported in 1843, and which subsequently passed into the possession of Her 
Majesty, under the name of Cochin China fowls; but from a drawing of these very birds which 
appeared in the Illustrated London News of that date, it is easy to see that they possessed no 
characters whatever which distinguish Cochins as we now know them, except the yellow legs and 
the large size. They were very long and bare on the leg ; the carriage of the head was backward 
instead of forward ; the tails were tolerably abundant (much more so than even the modern 
Brahma) and carried high ; and the back sloped down to the tail instead of rising to it. Add to 
this that the birds were both narrow and entirely destitute of fluff, and the plumage close and hard 
instead of soft and downy ; and it will be rather hard to conceive the grounds of such an amazing 
assertion as that 1843 “may be stated as being the period of the first introduction of these 
remarkable fowls into this country.” These early birds, in fact, while combining some of the blood 
of both, were evidently far more Malay than Cochin in their type, and probably came in reality 
from the region whose name they bore. They always retained the bare leg, and with hardly an 
exception had black, or nearly black, eyes. 
Later on Her Majesty possessed better specimens, and in 1846 exhibited at the Dublin Cattle 
Show some fowls which attracted great attention, but were still nearly as far from the true type. It 
was, in fact, not until 1847 that two English breeders introduced birds which exhibited at least the 
essentials of the Cochin variety as we now have it. All these birds came from China, and almost 
exclusively from the port of Shanghae ; and hence for some time a fruitless controversy was raised 
as to the proper name, and fruitless attempts made to change their popular designation for the 
undoubtedly more accurate one of Shanghaes. These attempts were continued later in America 
than in England ; and till a few years ago many United States fanciers were in the habit of 
calling all feather-legged Cochins by the name of Shanghaes ; but even there the attempt has 
failed, and the recent increased intercourse between the fanciers of the two nations has finally 
produced uniformity of nomenclature at the expense of accuracy. We not only need the space, 
but we have not the inclination to go at length, as some have done, into this now useless 
controversy ; the more especially as we have often remarked the curious uniformity with which, in 
any struggle of facts against a popular name, the name is sure to win. It is sufficient to observe 
that so it was in the case of these birds. Cochins they certainly were not ; but Cochins people 
would have them to be, Cochins they became, and Cochins they remain. 
The introduction of these fowls, as we have already hinted, was a memorable event in the 
history of poultry ; since they undoubtedly awakened that startling “ mania ” which was, calmly 
considered, one of the most curious phenomena of the nineteenth century, and which, after it died 
away, left behind it an enduring interest in poultry generally, which nothing has since been able to 
destroy. Scarcely any people at that time kept fowls ; and as for the few poultry-shows which 
