2gb 
The Illustrated Book of Poultry. 
breeds, though nothing self-coloured. There is Black with brassy wings, the hen to match being 
all black, mostly bred from birds a dirty black with a blue shade. Also the Spangles, almost 
every other feather being red and white, and tail black and white ; the hens to match this are 
nearly the colour of a Houdan hen, only brown instead of black, and not inclined to spangle so 
evenly. The Furness Game are a smoky blue, with brass wings, and almost a black hackle ; hens 
blue, speckled with black streaks, hackles dark, tail dark. Cuckoo Game is a very scarce variety, 
not much prized either for beauty of feather or style, being a smutty blue in body-colour, with light 
markings all over ; hackle a shade darker than body. This breed could be greatly improved with 
the cross of the short-feathered ginger Brown-reds. I think by picking the Brown-red to cross by 
with a shade of blue in him, there would not be so much chance of losing the cuckoo-markings as 
with any other cross. There are, as I have said, several other local breeds or colours ; but being 
never seen at our shows, and not at all attractive, it is hardly worth while giving them a place here. 
“ Game hens, on the whole, are good average layers, and there are no better mothers for 
protecting the chickens. I have seen a Game hen with chickens drive off all sorts of enemies, from 
a horse to a rat, and I have seen a Game hen actually kill a rat, a rook, and even a hawk ; nothing 
is so big or savage but that she will defend her brood from it. In general I put eleven eggs 
under each hen. Unless a few hens hatch off the same day, we are obliged to set the coops far 
apart, or destruction would be the result. The best time to get Game hatched is from the middle 
of March to the end of April. Get them to nice cottage-runs as early as possible after they leave 
the hens ; and, if this is not convenient, divide pullets and cockerels — it will save many a fight. 
Dub as you find walks for them. The age for dubbing is in general seventeen or eighteen weeks 
old. Dubbing, I need hardly say, is the removal of comb, wattles, and ear-lobes. To do this 
properly, so as to cause the least loss of blood, the cock should be held by an assistant by the 
thigh and shoulder of the wing, pressing the bird close to his breast with one hand, while with the 
other he lays hold of the comb, keeping the bird with his head and breast slightly turned up. The 
operator then lays hold of the wattle, inserting the point of his dubbing scissors at the lower 
mandible, and striking straight for the ear, leaving the old skin about half an inch, or hardly so 
much, between your cut and the eye. When you get to the ear commence again at the under side 
of the wattle, and run the point of scissors about half way down, then dissect gradually up to the 
ear. I have often taken the wattles off in this way without losing a salt-spoonful of blood from 
both wattles. When wattles and ears are off, the assistant takes the cockerel well in hand by the 
shoulders and thighs, when the operator inserts his left thumb across the inside of the beak, placing 
his forefinger at the back of head. Care must, however, be taken not to choke the bird. Then 
setting his scissors close and firmly on the head, straight up from the beak, with one cut, by 
keeping the scissors pressed well down as he cuts, he will take the comb clean off ; then merely a 
slight cut each side of the beak, to take off a small excrescence that would make the setting in at 
the beak heavy, and the operation is over, and, if convenient, the cock may be tossed up in the air, 
The blood usually stops at once, and nothing more is required. He will then be nice and red 
again in six weeks, and fit to exhibit. 
“It is a well-known fact that all our most successful strains of Black-breasted Red Game at 
the present day, and for the last fifteen years, sprang from close to Derby, and were bred by a 
gentleman that exhibits but seldom now ; but when he does exhibit there is always something to 
admire, and the pen is very soon claimed. All our different strains and yards of any note in the 
Brown-red Game, again, have sprung from and around Nantwich, in Cheshire, and at the present 
time I could not name a yard without Nantwich blood. In Pile Game, St. Helen’s, in Lancashire, 
