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CHAPTER XXX. 
BANTAMS (EXCEPT GAME). 
The diminutive breeds denominated Bantams, from some totally erroneous supposition that they 
had been derived from the place bearing that name, have always been popular amongst poultry- 
keepers, and the space before their pens is nearly always thronged at a good show. Many of them 
have their good points as layers, and for the food they cost are by no means unprofitable poultry; 
but all have one conspicuous merit at least — they can be kept in small places, and in neighbour- 
hoods where no large variety of fowls could be kept at all. They are content with small space as 
well as small meals ; and even their little crow does not annoy neighbours who would quickly 
repeat the teapot storm of the celebrated “great peacock case,” did the amateur keep a sonorous 
rooster of the orthodox persuasions. Nearly all of them — even the Game — are naturally tame and 
familiar in disposition ; and for all such reasons and more, these little minnikin fowls afford an 
amount of happiness it is difficult to estimate, and place the highest pleasures of poultry-keeping 
within the reach of hundreds who otherwise must go without them altogether. Many a lady, tired 
of having nothing to pet but a tom-cat, has wondered longingly whether she might not keep a 
few fowls ; but looking at her garden with regretful eyes, has decided that half of it would be 
needed, and that she could not spare that ; when the happy thought has crossed her mind, “Why not 
keep Bantams ?” A little space — just that strip which can so easily be spared — will content them ; 
and as to crowing, who in the world would mind the voice of a little fellow no bigger than a 
pigeon ? She is made happy ; and even the tom-cat, ousted at first from his olden place, but who 
has provided for him a never-ending subject of interest in the perpetually intense speculation as 
to the possibility of some peculiarly tiny chicken coming some day through to the wrong side of 
the wire — even he is made happy too. Decidedly Bantams have their place in the world. 
Even more than this may be said for them. They eat next to nothing, and may often be 
kept going entirely on bread-crumbs and such like rejectamenta from a small household ; while we 
have already remarked that some of them are really good layers. And if their eggs are small — 
well, most delicious things are small. We have often wondered why peas were not made as large 
as beans ; but they are very good as peas nevertheless, and we could ill spare them. And Bantams 
lay delicious, delicate, fairy eggs, to be tenderly ransacked by fairy fingers with a fairy spoon ; or, 
if there be a very little child, who so delighted as she either to eat herself, or to see her mother 
eat, the little egg from “her little hen?” We have heard, too, of delicate invalids, who on “bad 
days” could touch nothing but those same Bantam eggs laid by the pet hen — the first morsel that 
had passed the thin white lips when the life and strength so nearly lost began to come struggling 
back, and still relished at times when everything else was turned from with disgust — brought in on 
bright green moss, to be welcomed with a smile, and cooked there and then (as Bantam eggs 
should be), by simply pouring boiling water upon them in sight of the invalid, so as to awaken 
interest and appetite together. Yes, they have even their uses. Pretty, interesting, useful, lovable — 
we pity the hard-headed man who can’t admire a Bantam. What if the airs of the little rooster do 
