The Illustrated Book of Poultry. 
270 
The brown colour once liked by a few breeders is scarcely ever bred now. Those who admire 
it should select a cock with a feiv brown feathers in the bar of the wing. The breast may be 
considerably mottled, and so may the thighs, if the hens be darkly pencilled on the breast. Many 
persons seem to consider that brown Brahmas must necessarily be crossed. We certainly have 
seen some such birds, whose coarse, cruel-looking heads, and other points, denoted a cross with 
the Dorking ; but many others present all the characteristics of pure-bred Brahmas, and in a few 
years, simply by selection, this colour may be bred from, the purest grey. It is, therefore, more a 
matter of fancy than anything else. With regard to the crossing of different colours, a cock of 
the dark strain may be mated with hens of either the brown or the silver-grey, and will only 
darken the pencilling. A cock of the brown strains, mated with hens of the two others, may give 
pretty tolerable results, giving, however, brown patches, or stray red feathers, or salmon breasts, to 
many of the pullets from silver-grey hens. A cock from a light silver-grey yard will breed very 
few good pullets at all with hens of other colours, unless unusually dark, but will sometimes produce 
very beautiful and clean-coloured cockerels. A cock from a really good dark blue-grey strain will 
breed well with almost anything. And as the shades of difference are so fine, in claiming a cock 
at any show the purchaser should akvays observe carefully the colour of the hens or pullets shown 
by the same exhibitor, and only complete the transaction if that nearly agrees either with his 
own, or at least with a permissible cross for the purpose desired. 
Small combs must be selected with especial care if this beautiful point be at all valued by the 
breeder ; being yet one of the rarest features in otherwise good birds — perhaps, indeed, rarest of all 
with the exception of the perfect “ black-cock ” tail. The breeder who wishes to revive this latter 
feature must choose his stock with reference to it, especially the hens. Probably all that can be 
done the first year will be to select a cock with some slight tendency to divergence in the top pair 
of tail-feathers, who should be mated with a hen or hens whose top pair of tail-feathers lie nearly 
or quite flat — i.e., flat laterally , or with their edges extending side to side, instead of from front to 
back ; by which means the tendency will be increased till the true tail be developed. Since we 
first published an engraving of it, some fanciers have very politely questioned whether such a tail 
as Mr. Teebay describes ever did or could exist. To such scepticism fact is the best answer : we 
succeeded in breeding it ourselves, in the third generation from the first selection of stock for that 
purpose ; and the beautiful bird, to which was awarded both the Crystal Palace Cup and the special 
extra prize at Birmingham in 1872, answered exactly and fully to the description we have given at 
page 260. The revival of this type of tail is therefore entirely a matter for individual choice and 
perseverance. 
Waste chickens can be picked out with tolerable ease at about ten to twelve weeks old, when 
the sexes are separated. The general “carriage” of the cockerels is in fact, in this breed, more 
like the ultimate or mature form then, than at a later or intermediate stage, when the bird becomes 
raw and “gawky,” and often so unutterably ugly that no one but a genuine Brahma fancier would 
retain any faith in him at all. We have often been interested to observe how, after this period of 
transition, the shape and very gait of the ten-weeks chick have been reproduced in the matured 
cock. But at four or five months old, Brahma cockerels, either Light or Dark, are — well, cer- 
tainly not handsome! and it is a singular fact that the rawest and ugliest bird of the lot generally 
turns out the best in the end. He is making frame while the others are looking “pretty,” and 
eventually, when his great body has filled out and “ settled ” a little, and his feathers — especially 
that tail which seemed as if it never would grow— are come at last, turns out a magnificent giant, 
perhaps “ the best bird you ever bred.” A young cock, therefore, should never be discarded for 
being leggy, which will, in nine cases out of ten, disappear with age. 
