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THE POUr/IBY BOOK. 
poultry that was held in some repute from its magnificent size and hardihood. 
The name, like that of almost all other poultry, is a misnomer. Neither our ordi- 
nary fowls, nor any of those birds that are closely related to them and constitute 
the genus Gallus, are natives of the American continent. The denizens of the 
farmyard were introduced to the west after the discovery of America by Columbus. 
The origin of the so-called Columbian fowls is obviously to be traced to a cross 
between the Spanish and the Malay. The well- developed comb and wattles and 
the black plumage being derived from the first-named parent : the large size, great 
weight, and hardihood, from the latter. Columbians are stated, by those who have 
kept them, to be remarkably prolific, laying numerous eggs of large size, which 
produce rapidly growing and precocious chickens. Should any fancier deem the 
variety worth reproducing, we should recommend him to select a very large, well- 
developed Spanish cock, redness of face being quite immaterial, and to mate him 
to some large-sized Malay hens. By this arrangement, the desired form, colour, 
and size would be more readily obtained than by matching a Malay cock with 
Spanish hens, for it is an axiom in breeding that the external characters of form 
and colour are chiefly derived from the male parent, whilst size, constitution and 
vigour follow the female. Hence the comb, the dark plumage, the well-developed 
tail and prominent breast of the Spanish might be secured in conjunction with the 
heavy weight of the Malay. But whether or not the variety is worth the trouble of 
thus reproducing, we must leave to the taste or fancy of the breeder. In poultry, 
as in most other matters, the old maxim respecting individual taste, de gustihiis non 
est disputandum, is undeniable. Some men can see nothing but elegance and grace 
in the quaint outlines of a Cochin, whilst the aesthetic perceptions of others are 
gratified by the contemplation of the feathered crest of the Polish, and a third 
set regard a Frizzled fowl, with all its feathers turned the wrong way, as though it 
had been pulled through a hedge backwards, the very perfection of gallinaceous 
beauty. 
