112 
THE POULTRY BOOK. 
of the body to be provided for, but the materials for the production of the feathers 
must also be supplied ; we should therefore strongly recommend the system 
of feeding found so advantageous in promoting the rapid growth of Dorkings, and 
described in the communication of Mr. Douglas in the chapter on that variety. 
With regard to the time of year that our earliest Spanish broods should make 
their appearance, we cannot do better than give the opinion of Mr. Lawrence, of 
Penzance, who has bred them largely and successfully : — 
‘‘ I think the chicks hatch readily, and are easily reared, with proper attention to 
the season of the year selected for that purpose. I do not recommend Spanish 
eggs being put under hens earlier than the first week in April, on account of the 
unfeathered state of the chickens, for it is nearly ten weeks before they can be 
called perfectly fledged. They require more care for the fortnight following 
hatching than Cochins ; but after that time, I have found them to be as hardy and 
as easily reared as any other fowls at this season of the year. They call for no 
precautions as to subsequent management, beyond what falls to the lot of fowls in 
general.” 
These recommendations we find confirmed by the practice at Knowsley, where, 
when desiring to have early chickens, Admiral Hornby never places more than 
seven, or, at the most, nine eggs, under a hen during the months of February and 
March. He justly observes : — “ She cannot then properly cover more, nor gene- 
rate sufficient heat at that chilly season ; and when, as happens thus early in the 
year, ‘ scrattle ’ is not plentiful, what will keep five chickens is but a bare mouthful 
for ten.” 
Soft blue-black down, more or less marked with white on the face, throat, and 
breast, forms their early garb ; and when feathering begins, there is usually a 
longer interval than we wish between the casting off of the one covering and the 
assumption of the other. However immaterial this may be found in the warm 
sunshine of a Mediterranean climate, it is apt to prove a serious matter in the 
chilling blasts of our own island, and calls for nutritive food and warm housing. 
But with these precautions, which indeed would pay well for all poultry hatched 
very early in the season, the Spanish fowl is as likely to thrive, and answer our 
several purposes, as any other race — so far, we mean, as regards its vigour of 
constitution and endurance of our seasons when thus cared for. 
In the case of very early chickens, hatched during the winter months, it will be 
found necessary to feed them after they have retired to rest ; young chickens 
cannot be expected to thrive if constrained to go without food from four or five 
o’clock in the afternoon until seven o’clock the following morning ; if so long an 
interval as twelve to fifteen hours elapses between the last evening and the first 
morning meal, the crop is perfectly empty for several hours, and the young birds 
are hungry and exhausted for want of food. 
Spanish chickens grow rapidly — feathers usually begin to appear at about five 
weeks on the centre of the back and on each side of the breast ; if healthy, the 
fifth month should see them in full plumage. The cockerels acquire the white 
