448 
The Illustrated Book of Poultry. 
in the Japanese Great National Museum at Tokio there were preserved two specimens of an allied 
race, in which the tail-feathers measure thirteen and a half feet and seventeen feet respectively ! and a 
feather has been actually sent to France which measures two metres eighty-five centimetres in length. 
In 1884, Mr. Gerald Waller, of Twywell, imported a pen of these birds ; and from his statements we 
gather that they are known in Japan as Shinowaratao, Shirifuzi, or Sakawatao fowls, and other various 
names. He says the very long-tailed ones are kept in high narrow cages, always sitting on a perch 
covered with straw rope, with no room to turn or get down, but with a food and water tin at each end 
of the perch. Three times daily they are lifted down for a few minutes’ exercise, their tails being care- 
fully rolled up in paper cases to keep them from injury! The Japanese state that a tail has been 
measured twenty-three feet in length, and that the birds only moult the tail once in three years. This 
last statement is highly interesting. It is obvious that if a tail twenty-three feet long were grown in 
one year, it must be at the rate of nearly three-quarters of an inch per day ; and though Madame 
Bodinus states that she could see the tails “grow daily,” it is difficult to realise this ; but experience 
will soon decide the point. The birds which have reached Europe have never yet exceeded 
five or six feet in length of feather, which is not beyond the possibility of a single season, 
though it appears of an enormous length. The saddle-hackles of Mr. Waller’s birds are sixteen inches 
in length ; but it is manifest that such enormous feathers as reported from Japan could never be 
preserved under the ordinary conditions of an English poultry-yard. The feathers are not only 
long, but extremely narrow and flexible, trailing low after the birds. 
Our own conviction is, that there is really but one race of these fowls, which in its purity and 
perfection is difficult to procure, but of which inferior or crossed specimens are less rare, and have 
thus been imported from time to time. Mr. Waller was told that even in Japan tails over six 
feet in length were very rare. We believe that if cultivated successfully in Europe, judging will 
have to be decided almost entirely by the development of the tail and hackle plumage, and would 
accordingly argue strongly for simplicity and unity of nomenclature. “ Phoenix ” is vague and 
meaningless ; and as nearly all the birds came from the port of Yokohama, we do not know 
that a much better name than Yokohamas could be found. But in any case, we would urge one 
name only. Much of the Continental stock has been raised from a cross with English Game ; but 
even this stock may have to be used if the strain is to be kept from perishing. For these fowls 
appear to be very delicate, especially as chickens, and the eggs are far from fertile at present. This 
is hardly to be wondered at in any stock kept under such extraordinarily unnatural conditions 
as we have seen. 
NAKED NECKS. — By this name is known a curious variety imported from Austria, and 
in which the feathers are entirely absent from the neck, the head being feathered as usual. The 
effect is peculiar, but most unpleasant. There is nothing fixed about the birds otherwise, the last 
pair we saw having the cock feathered and the hen bare-legged, and the plumage that of the 
commonest barn-door mongrel type. 
An amateur who had travelled in Transylvania (the home of these fowls) told us there was a 
tradition their origin had been from a bird injured by a severe scald on the neck, which had 
caused utter loss of plumage, which was afterwards transmitted. We only give the legend for 
what it is worth. 
ORPINGTONS. — In the preceding chapter several instances have been given of new 
and useful races of poultry produced in America, expressly and avowedly by breeding from the 
produce of crosses between pre-existing races. The fowl known under the present name 
