THE POULTRY BOOK. 
157 
cocks is white, often tinged with yellow, the longest feathers slightly tipped with 
black. The neck of the hen is white, striped with black, the spangles on the 
greater and lesser wing coverts forming two distinct bars across the wing. The 
tail of both cock and hen white, ending with black spangles. 
^‘In the true Silver-mooney hen the spangles are very rich and round; these 
hens are often seen at shows, but they are seldom exhibited with the true mooney 
cocks, the latter finding little favour on account of their stained deaf- ears 
and dark tail, and smaller and shorter build, yet it is quite impossible to breed 
good Mooney hens with any other than a true-bred Mooney cock. A large 
number of the clearest tailed Silver- spangled cocks are bred from Lancashire 
Silver-mooney cocks and rather light Yorkshire Silver-pheasant hens ; the cockerels 
from this cross frequently have very pure white deaf-ears and clear tails, but they 
are generally too light on the breast, particularly in the higher part. The pullets 
from the cross are quite worthless, being nearly always deficient in mooning on the 
shoulder coverts. Should a pullet by any chance appear amongst these cross 
breeds passable in marking, she always, at her first moult, becomes light on the 
shoulder and higher part of the back ; whereas the true-bred Silver-mooney hen 
will moult true all her life without the slightest deterioration in the marking of 
any part. I have now a Silver-mooney hen, seven years old, that has often been 
successfully exhibited and has moulted without the slightest perceptible difference 
in marking, except that the moons appear to increase slightly in size. The 
two hens formerly exhibited so successfully by Mr. Beldon, and afterwards by Mr. 
Wood of Kendal, are true Lancashire Mooneys, and though they have been so very 
frequently shown for at least six years as seldom to have been more than 
a few weeks at once at their own home, their marking is as near perfection as 
possible. The slightest impurity of blood, in either the Gold or Silver birds, 
always shows itself in the bar feathers of the wings, which become laced ; 
consequently a laced wing in adult birds is looked upon, both by the Yorkshire 
and Lancashire breeders, with perfect disgust. Chickens of the truest blood in 
their first year often show a little lacing on the bar feathers : this is generally the 
case in Golden-mooney pullets, but after their first adult moult, if there is no 
stain in the blood, their bar feathers are beautifully clear and free from that 
imperfection. Impurity of blood also shows itself in mossing and lacing, es- 
pecially on the feathers near the tail and breast, and in the Silver hens by clouded 
necks. 
‘‘ The colour of the down at the base of the feathers varies very much in the 
different varieties. In the pure-bred Mooney the down is a rich black, much 
darker than in the Pheasant fowl, and extends farther up towards the middle of 
the feathers. Some of the silvers bred from Mooney cocks and Silver Pheasant 
hens, have pure white down on the bottom of the feathers, the down at the 
root of the cock’s tail is pure white, and there are not any spangles on the tips 
of the tail feathers ; these birds are often called clear-tailed cocks, on account of the 
