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CHAPTER XIX. 
LANGSHANS. 
The towib now known by this name (whether or not any previous importation had ever taken 
place mils'- remain undetermined) were first received in England by the late Major Croad in 
the early part of the year 1872, and were exhibited at the Crystal Palace Show following, in 
the class for “Any other New or Distinct Variety.” In reply to the request for opinions upon 
them, all the poultry authorities of the day gave it unanimously, as formed upon the fowls in 
the show-pen , that they were practically identical with Black Cochins ; and in deference to that 
opinion, the fowls were entered as “Black Cochins” at the following Crystal Palace Show of 
1873. When thus shown, however, most of them (not all) were at once pronounced “bad” 
Black Cochins — bad, that is, from the “fancy” point of view of the modern Cochin standard, 
and without considering whether their very badness as Cochins might not ipso facto make 
them by so much better as fowls , at least in some points. In the early days Miss Watts had 
pointed out that Cochin breeders were selecting, when the matter was in their own hands, 
some of the worst points to breed to, especially deficient breast. Many of these fowls (not 
all) had good breasts, as some early Cochins also had ; many were much longer in the leg 
than modern Cochins, though early ones had been as long ; many were nearly bare-legged, as 
early Cochins also were ; and all had black legs, which, with black plumage, ensures white 
and delicate skin ; while Cochin breeders had been striving for a more or less dusky yellow, 
against the constant propensity to breed black which all black fowls strongly manifest. In 
fact, this difficulty of maintaining the yellow leg against strong natural tendencies the other 
way, had all but annihilated the Black Cochin classes. 
The position therefore was, that if the new fowls were shown in the Variety class, 
they were considered by all the authorities to be in the wrong class, wherever there was a 
class available for Black Cochins ; while if shown as Black Cochins, most of them were so 
inferior in what were considered “ Cochin points/" that they stood no chance there. The 
owners were advised to breed up to these points if they wanted to win, and Black Cochin 
breeders themselves resorted eagerly to the new blood, with a rapid and startling improvement 
as the result. The exhibitors of the new strain, which they had named Langshan, after 
the locality in North China from which the birds came, were naturally not so well satisfied with 
the anomalous position of their fowls, as above described. The “ authorities ” might consider 
them identical with Cochins — and we have no wish to disguise that we fully shared and ex- 
pressed that opinion — but those who bred them affirmed that there was about them, in nature 
and constitution, as well as external points, something altogether different and superior. Recent 
developments have proved them to have been in considerable measure correct in this, and 
some irritation was natural under such circumstances ; but nothing can excuse the course 
that was actually taken. What should have been done was to select, breed, and exhibit 
birds of the most distinctive type , which by their own evidence would very soon have con- 
quered disbelief, as afterwards amply appeared. Instead of this, what actually was done was 
