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The Illustrated Book of Poultry. 
from various reports, not quite so much so as the Dorking cross. The third is with the Houdan 
cock. The produce of this last is the best layer of all the crosses named, but is generally of a 
very “common” appearance so far as plumage goes. The carcase is not so large as either of the 
other crosses, but is of good quality and quickly matured ; it is perhaps somewhat inferior in 
breast-meat to the two others. The chickens of this cross cannot be surpassed in hardihood. 
We might add that the American breeds known as Plymouth Rocks have very evidently been 
produced originally by crossing Cochins with either Scotch Greys or Cuckoo Dorkings ; but the 
new race has been fixed by subsequent careful breeding. Wyandottes, Danvers Whites, and other 
American breeds, also owe much to a Cochin cross. 
JUDGING COCHINS. — We have already made some general remarks upon the real place 
and value of a “ Standard of Excellence,” with its scale of points. Every judge must have some 
notion in his mind of the comparative value of different features ; and a scale is, after all, the 
simplest and easiest way of expressing this. We have now and in the remaining chapters of this 
work to approach the difficult task of framing a set of schedules, which, if possible, shall represent 
correct judging, even according to the standard of merit of the present day. Those we shall 
give have been arrived at by degrees, and have at last assumed a shape so directly opposite 
to all which preceded them, that it may be well to state briefly how that form was adopted. 
In publishing some years ago a little work solely on “ The Brahma Fowl,” and in giving 
a scale of points for judging that breed, we stated a conviction even then arrived at from 
experience, that to form any reliable system at all, it was needful to value marked defects as 
well as points of merit. We arrived at this conclusion chiefly from the utter impossibility we 
had found of reconciling some evidently correct decisions of Messrs. Hewitt and Teebay, in a 
large Brahma class at Birmingham, in any other way, with any scale it was possible to frame ; 
and we accordingly gave a table of positive defects to be valued against a bird, as well as 
points of merit to be reckoned in its favour. All subsequent experience proved the truth of 
this principle so far as it went; all our scales were originally framed in that form; and by this 
means we succeeded in reconciling nine-tenths of the decisions we had been able to collate in most 
breeds, with the scales we had framed. But there still remained some marked exceptions. 
We became, however, finally convinced — chiefly through a remark of Mr. Hewitt’s that no 
proportion of points could fairly represent some degrees of defect, as, for instance, a total want 
of condition — that the whole system of tabulating excellencies was fundamentally wrong, and that 
a plan which had occurred to us some years before of valuing defects solely , offered the only sound 
basis for a table of points. Judging really is itself a question more of defects than of excel- 
lencies, since without some general approach to excellence no bird can have any place in a good 
class. Such a plan also meets another difficulty, which we had encountered again and again, 
and which consists in the fact that the number of points given to one feature, while as much as 
could be allotted consistently with the proportionate value of other individual points, were often 
not enough compared with the total value of a perfect bird. The difficulty arises from the 
necessity of not only making the values of various points proportionate with each other, but 
of keeping the total within the hundred points. On the other hand, by starting from one con- 
crete standard or highest value, and simply deducting ivhat may be proper , we are free from this 
necessity ; we are no longer obliged to keep the sum of the defects within our ideal or perfect 
number , but can give them what weight we find necessary as compared with that number , as well 
as compared with each other; and hence, ought to be able to meet nearly if not quite every case 
that can occur. 
