235 
THE POULTEY BOOK. 
in length, measured to the end of the peak behind. Valuable as Eedcaps may 
be, both as table fowl and as enormous egg producers, we cannot do more than 
regard them as a local breed, not likely ever to rise into general estimation. The 
excessive development of comb, so highly valued by the fancier of the variety, is 
a property that would rather be regarded as a deformity by amateurs in general. 
BARN-DOOE FOWLS. 
The title of Barn-door fowls is given to the mongrels that are found existing in 
all places where no care whatever is taken respecting the purity of the breed of 
poultry. Their characteristics vary in almost every locality. In many parts of 
the country, the ordinary farm-yard fowls show a strong likeness to the game 
breed, arising from the custom, formerly so extensively followed, of putting game 
cocks out “ to walk” at the cottagers’ and tenants’ of the landed proprietors. In 
some of the old leases, drawn up when cock-fighting was not an illegal amuse- 
ment, a clause was inserted that each tenant should walk a cock or cocks for the 
proprietor of the soil. The close, hard feathered, neat, compact fowls, seen in so 
many districts, evidently result from this custom. In parts of the country where 
other breeds are largely kept, their mongrel progeny are visible : thus, near 
London, the common fowls show a strong infusion of the Spanish blood. 
In parts of the New Forest, in Hampshire, Polish parentage has given rise to 
many crested hens. At the time of the Cochin mania, when every one tried to 
rear birds that were to sell at one pound sterling per pound, avoirdupois. Cochins 
were raised in every locality, the result being that fowls having a yellow skin, and 
legs with heavy useless bone, appeared for a few seasons in all the poulterers’ 
shops ; and the higglers who bought up the young birds to fatten for the London 
markets, denounced the introduction of the fashionable Asiatic breed, with a 
zeal and energy more vigorous than polite. 
The Barn-door fowls would not require any lengthened consideration, except to 
correct an impression that still exists in the minds of some prejudiced persons,, 
wiio assert that these common mongrels are superior for economical purposes to 
any pure and well-marked breed. We would inquire of such persons if they 
know of any Barn-door fowls that lay as many eggs as Hamburghs, amongst 
the non- sitters, or the Cochins or Brahmas amongst the sitters, or whether any 
are equal to Dorkings or Houdans as table fowl. These erroneous views may be 
accounted for by the fact that, until within the last few years, the improvement 
of poultry has been generally neglected in this country ; it is only recently that 
w^e have been aroused to a correct appreciation of their value. Every competent 
person who now directs his thoughts to the subject, at once acknowledges that poultry 
are as capable as any other kind of farming stock of being increased in value 
by breeding from select specimens ; and the consequences of this conviction are 
apparent in the fact that the improvement which has been effected up to the 
present time has been of a most marked and decided character. If any sanguine 
poultry-breeder had prophesied a few years since that Dorking pullets would be 
