256 
The Illustrated Book of Poultry. 
sixty miles S. by E. of Dacca, near the left bank, and within a few miles of the mouth of the Great Megna, with which it 
communicates by a small river. The Megna has a breadth near Luckipoor of more than ten miles.” As the name Megna might 
mislead some few readers, I add the description of this, also from Blackie : “ Megna, the name given to the river Brahma-Pootra 
throughout the latter part of its course, and by which it is known at its embouchure in the bay of Bengal.” 
_ So much for Blackie. I need not add, what is so well known to you, that even the “small rivers” of India are easily 
navigable. But, further, in the “Penny Cyclopaedia,” art. “ Hindosfan,” p. 217, is the following passage, speaking of the rise of 
the tide in the river Brahma-Pootra : “At the bifurcation of the Chudna branch it rises between thirty-one and thiity-two feet ; at 
Dacca only fourteen feet ; and further southward, at Luckipoor, not more than six feet.” 
Mr. Burnham adds that the name should have been spelt “ Luckimpore,” and that he has 
searched the New York Customs register in vain from 1846 to 1849 for any vessel from 
Luckipoor. The first objection is interesting as an indirect proof of Mr. Cornish’s 
trustworthiness. Luckipoor is seldom now found in Indian maps, the modem spelling being 
pore. Now had Mr. Cornish been making up a tale, he would almost certainly have pitched 
upon a more important place ; or if he had taken it from a map (and Mr. Burnham, as vve 
have seen, expressly implies this part of the story was made “to order” in 1869) he would 
have got it spelt in the modern way. If, again, he only wanted to bolster up the old tale, he 
would certainly have followed Dr. Bennett, who wrote on Nov. 8. 1853, to Miss Watts that “my 
Brahma Pootras from India and Burnham’s Grey Shanghaes from China — mine from the Brahma- 
pootra valley and shipped from Calcutta , Burnham’s from the city of Shanghae — are very different 
birds.” But if Cornish wrote from genuine but old recollections of where the sailor said the 
fowls came from, nothing is more natural than that he should confuse that place with the 
starting-point of the ship itself, which probably came from Dacca or Calcutta. Luckipore 
lies between these two places, and the fowls probably were put on board a vessel cleared by 
her papers from one or the other of them. This is stated from a wish not to cast needless 
doubt upon Mr. Burnham’s statement ab:>ut searching the registers; though after what has 
been shown (and which forms a very small part of what might be shown) we should scarcely 
scruple to question any statement whatever of his that clashed with other testimony. 
This brings us to the Chittagong, and Mr. Burnham’s mis-statements regarding that fowl. 
Mr. Burnham says they were Shanghaes, that they came from “ Shanghae,” and that he 
“imported” them from Shanghae! Thus in The Fancier's Journal for July, 1874, he says: — 
I imported from Shanghae, China, my first full-grown Light Greys, in 1849, through Dr. J. J. Kerr, Phila., and my 
second lot from Shanghae, five adult birds, through Wm. T. Porter, New York, in 1850. — [G. P. Burnham' s account from 
1849 to 1874 continuously.) 
We have seen already that he never “ imported ” them at all, but that Dr. Kerr had them 
before, and sold him some. However, our present and only business is with their origin. Burnham 
says in “ The China Fowl ” that Dr. Kerr told him in a letter they came from “ Shanghae.” He says 
again and again, in the same work, that no progenitor of the Brahma “ ever saw India.” This is 
the only statement of his that really is from first to last consistent : he never seems 
to vary in this one point. But, alas ! it is as untrue as the rest, for in Dr. Bennett’s 
“Poultry Book,” published in 1851, is Dr. Kerr’s own authentic account of his Chittagongs. 
Having first described the Shanghaes as coming from North China, Dr. Kerr goes on to 
say that “ my Chittagongs and Cochin China, which come, the one from the vicinity of 
Calcutta , and the other from Southern China, are, as I shall show, considerably larger.” 
It is indeed evident on the face of it, that it was this fact got the fowls their name of 
“ Chittagong ; ” which is admitted, and which is unaccountable on Mr. Burnham’s theory. 
They were Indian fowls. Hence it appears, that taking Mr. Burnham’s own account of the 
origin of Brahmas, if we take Dr. Kerr’s own account of his own fowls , they still came from 
India, and not from China ! It further appears that from some strong personal reason Mr. 
