Characteristics of Dark Brahmas. 
265 
thighs and fluff either black, or black very slightly ticked or laced with white. The shank 
feathering should correspond with the breast, being black if the latter is, and slightly mottled with 
white if not. The proper colour for the shanks is deep yellow, inclining to orange ; but this can 
rarely be obtained except on a grass-run ; and many Brahmas being reared in confinement, if the 
leg be moderately yellow it is sufficient. 
The colour of the hen somewhat varies, according to the taste of each individual fancier. Mr. 
Boyle, for some years a very successful exhibitor, describes it in “The Practical Poultry Keeper 
as a “ dingy white ground, very much and closely pencilled with dark steel-grey.” The effect of 
this is very beautiful, giving the appearance of a frosted or silver-grey ; but there should be no 
appearance of pure white in the plumage except in the margins of the neck-hackles. Pullets of 
this colour are in perfection at about six to eight months old, but next season often acquire a very 
dingy tone which we much dislike. The hens also are of a dingy colour except for a month or two 
after moulting ; but we have bred a few birds of this colour which retained their clearness of tint 
to the last, proving that with care in breeding the objectionable dingy tone might be got rid of. 
A more serious fault is that this colour is very apt to breed pullets with necks almost white for 
some distance down ; and even below that very thin and uncertain in colour. These light-necked 
birds generally breed worse and worse ; but the evil can easily be checked by choosing birds for 
breeding whose heads are distinctly marked. 
A few years since some breeders, amongst whom were Mr. Lacy, preferred a decided brown 
colour for the hens ; a tint which breeds true with much less trouble than the clear. This tint 
is occasionally shown with success, but being in the opinion of most fanciers much inferior in 
beauty to the clear colour, has nearly if not quite gone out of fashion, and it has lately become an 
accepted axiom that a clear ground-colour is the proper one for a Brahma. 
Another colour is that wnich used to be shown by Mr. Teebay, and is generally much 
admired when seen in perfection, as it sometimes has been again of late years. The ground-colour 
in this case is itself a steel-grey, and the pencillings or markings a rich black, so intense as to show 
green reflections like the tails of the cocks. Sometimes there is a slight cast of chestnut in the 
ground, but the intense colour of the pencilling prevents this from looking the least dingy, even 
when the birds moult out as hens. The ground then often shows the chestnut tone, with a slight 
purple cast, but the birds look wonderfully rich even then. Other shades of marking also occur ; 
and on the whole what we prefer is a variety of the first or silver-grey colour, in which the grey 
of the ground is of a perceptible bluish cast, and the pencilling itself so dark as to be nearly 
black. This colour, which may be denominated the blue-grey, usually moults out tolerably clear, 
the bright blue only giving place to a slightly duller slaty cast, which makes the hens of this 
colour show better than any, unless the very dark pencilling may be an exception. 
The shape and character of the marking in Dark Brahma pullets also varies. In some birds 
the pattern is very thick and large, in others so small as to be barely distinguishable. We prefer 
a medium size, so that the pencillings can be clearly discerned at a distance of about twelve 
feet. The shape of marking, likewise, is found to differ, sometimes being nearly straight across 
the feather, as in pencilled Hamburghs, and in other cases being curved like a scries of lacings. 
A medium character looks best here too, in our own opinion ; and we append, by way of illustra- 
tion, a series of feathers from one of the best birds we ever bred, and one which was never 
shown without winning. She was of the blue-grey colour we have already spoken of, and the 
feathers were plucked at the age of twenty months. (Fig. 65.) 
A few American fanciers seem greatly to admire a feather for Dark Brahma pullets which, 
besides the regular pencilling, has a defined edge of dull white, considerably lighter than the rest of 
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