Le Mans and Courtes Pattes. 
419 
the hen was a grey-speckled bird, showing very plainly that some old importation of the Dorking 
fowl (which is well known in France) had had much to do with it, though, as already remarked, it 
appears nothing more than a fine and well-fed barn-yard race, improved by any promising cross as 
occasion offered. We have seen also black-breasted and speckled-breasted cocks ; but though all 
the birds were much of the Dorking type — and the finest we remember (the cock weighing ten 
pounds and a half) was in almost all points a Dorking — we never saw one with the fifth toe. 
No scale even of descriptive points can be given for the La Bresse fowls, further than to say 
that the larger they are and the nearer they come to the Dorking type, except the fifth toe, the 
better. Some of the black ones shown at the Paris Show of 1878 strongly resembled Minorcas in 
general appearance, except being a little more massive in frame. 
Besides the breeds named above, many crosses or sub-races aie known throughout various 
districts in France. Some of them have attained to some uniformity of type, but all. with one 
exception, are evidently derived from one or the other of the preceding breeds, and as evidently 
partake of the strong Polish ancestry. We must confine ourselves to a brief notice of two of these 
races. 
The Le Mans fowl is described by M. Perre de Roo in L' A cclimatat ion as a mere sub-variety 
of the Creve, without crest and with a cup comb. This description is quite corroborated by the 
English reporter of the Live Stock Journal, who, in describing the Paris Show alluded to above, 
states that he can best describe them as “ rose-combed Black Dorkings.” The type is not yet 
fixed, beyond being heavy and rather short-legged black fowls with little or no crest ; but they 
have of late perceptibly increased in France, and very possibly the crest may ere long be entirely 
bred out and the combs become uniform. 
Another variety, called “ Courtes Pattes ” (short-legs), has recently been described. The first 
mention we can find of them is by the reporter of the same Paris Show first alluded to, who states 
that they are “ black as coals,” and that a Scotch visitor told him they closely resembled Scotch 
Dumpies. Some months later some of these fowls were imported by Mr. T. Christy, of Fenchurch 
Street, from a pair of which the illustration was drawn. The account sent with these birds was, 
that the breeders of the long-legged and non-sitting La Fleche had found the need of an incubating, 
short-legged variety to hatch the eggs, and had therefore produced the Courtes Pattes. They are 
stated to be very hardy, excellent in flesh, good layers, small eaters, and to be either indisposed or 
incapable of scratching in a garden. This last point would be valuable ; but other accounts we 
have received do not bear it out. Neither do we think, from all that has reached us, that the breed 
can be depended on as yet for breeding very true. We should say by the appearance there 
was Dorking blood in them, and we hear that there is much variety in colour and combs. The 
same might, however, have been said some years ago of other French varieties which have since 
become established. And if the breed shall become fixed, it is probable that a hardy and well- 
fleshed black fowl, with the short legs of the Dumpy, might find many uses and much popular 
favour. 
The whole opens up two general questions of some importance. The first is, the great merits 
of the Polish race in respect of egg-production and quality of flesh, and the perfect possibility of 
grafting these upon increased size and hardiness, or, as in the case of the Crevecoeur, of adding 
to the size while preserving the Polish blood nearly, if not quite, pure ; the second is, the power of 
man, by judicious crosses, to create and fix new types of very different appearance and qualities 
from the same primeval ancestry. Little has been done in the way of crosses as yet by English 
fanciers ; and the results already obtained by both French and American experimentalists in this 
