? 5.6 The Illustrated Book of Poultry. 
as a good and typical form, impossible to confound with the Cochin, and which could be bred 
to, and judged, with some uniformity. As above noticed, it reappeared after the first season ; our 
remarks upon it began to be borne out by the decisions of the judges ; and year by year its 
predominance became more marked. It is undoubtedly this type of bird which has “made” 
the Langshan, and obtained for it the recognition of a distinct breed. 
But the battle was not over with this discovery of a really distinctive and good type, by any 
means : on the contrary, a certain inner circle of Langshan breeders became more bitter than ever, 
and its commendation was charged against us as a fresh offence ! We were accused of “ suppressing ” 
the fact that Mr. Thomson had received eggs from Miss Croad, and she herself charged us * * * § that 
the selection was made “as an apple of discord thrown in,” and even went so far as to say that we 
had “ attacked her yard through his.”f It afterwards appeared that the birds were from an 
entirely distinct importation, and quite independent of the Croad strain ; but the simple fact is 
that we were ignorant of all that at the time, and had never seen, or exchanged a word, in speech 
or writing, with Mr. Thomson at any time. We simply remarked upon the first birds of this type 
which we had ever seen in a pen , and we noted such for several years wherever we found them, as 
markedly differing from the types Miss Croad elected to exhibit. A little later we noticed pens 
shown by Mr. Bush : these birds, it appeared, were actually from eggs supplied by Miss Croad, and 
again we were charged with “personal hostility” for not stating what we could not know, whilst 
we did publish the fact as soon as ever it reached us. This case was the first knowledge we had 
that Miss Croad’s strain ever produced this type, for we had never seen it exhibited by her direct, 
and for years afterwards she and her partisans persistently opposed it and tried to stamp it 
out. A widely different form, high on the leg, with upright and often “ squirrel-tail,” was per- 
sistently written up as the correct one, and drawn as the proper model ;” % even the “standard” of 
the Club was altered as regards the length of leg from “ medium length ” to “ rather long ; ” fowls 
of the type we had preferred were attacked as “ Cochiny ; ” and finally, when we at last began 
to notice birds of the same type as occasionally shown by Miss Croad herself, and accordingly 
said so, she wrote, § “This I emphatically deny .” She further wrote (June 4, 1886) that she had 
“rejected ” the birds hatched from eggs Mr. Thomson had sent her, “ because they were so different 
from my own.” She had previously to this written admitting that our advocacy of the Thomson 
type “ certainly for a short time had the effect intended,” but implied that the victory was not 
won yet. This antagonism as to type, which certainly did exist for a time, was therefore entirely 
of her own choice ; since it appeared that her own strain did breed at least occasionally the 
style which was steadily gaining ground, and only needed an easy selection. 
The opposition to it was, however, carried to the most extreme lengths. Soon after 1880, Mr. 
Henry Merton Onne began to be successful, mainly by selecting this type of bird ; and a very 
bitter personal attack was made upon us by Mrs. Freeman and others, because we had not given 
portraits of Mr. Orme’s fowls in a former edition of this work. (The simple fact is that we had 
endeavoured to do this, as Mr. Orme would readily bear witness ; unfortunately without success.) 
But the awards to the fowls so selected did not satisfy the limited circle referred to, and the birds 
of Mr. Orme and the Rev. A. C. Davies, in particular, were now attacked in the maimer we must 
show, confining ourselves, for brevity, to what happened in connection with the London Dairy 
Show of October, 1884. The Langshan prize list at the show in question was as follows : — 
* Live Stock Journal , June 27, 1884. + Poultry , June 4, 1886. 
j A sketch of such a bird by Mr. Harrison Weir may be referred to in the Live Stock Journal for May 2, 1884 ; and the same 
gentleman described the tail as “ large and full, and carried well over the back,” as characterising Miss Croad’s birds, as well as 
his own selected from hers. In another issue he describes the tail as “ carried well up, in a way that some call squirrel-tailed.” 
§ Poultry , May 7 , 1886. 
