THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
July 15. 
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breed which are five-clawed, but so placed that no cross 
spurs arise from the legs; for she which has this male¬ 
like appondage, is rarely fruitful, and when she does sit 
breaks the eggs with her sharp claws. 
“The cocks should be lustful; coloured like the hens; 
with the same number of claws, but taller; proud of car¬ 
riage ; combs erect and blood-red; eyes brown or black; 
beak short and hooked; ears very large and very white; 
wattles looking whiter from their shining, and hanging 
down like a hoary beard ; the feathers of the neck or 
mane varying, but preferably from yellow to golden, 
and spreading down over the shoulders; the breast j 
broad and muscular; the wings brawny, like arms ; the j 
tail lofty, and composed of a double row of arching 
feathers, alike on each side; the thighs ample, and usu- j 
ally thickly clothed with coarse feathers; legs sturdy, j 
not long, but armed as it were with dangerous spears. ; 
Even when neither prepared for fighting, nor for the 
triumph of victory, their temper should be shown to bo 
highly generous, haughty, active, watchful, and given 
to crow often, also not easily alarmed; for sometimes it 
will be needful for them to repel attacks and to protect 
their conjugal flock.” 
Such were Columella’s models of what he considered 
a most superior hen and cock, and if two specimens 
now in our poultry-yard, drafted from Mr. Punchard’s 
stock of dark, or partridge-feathered Cochin-China fowls, 
had stood before the Roman narrator, he could not have I 
described these more closely, if the arched tail of the 
cock were excepted, and three claws were substituted j 
for five. The management of fowls adopted by the j 
Romans, and the construction of their poultry-houses, j 
closely resembled those adopted by ourselves; but for 
the present we shall pass over these particulars, and 
proceed to trace the history of the domestic fowl in our 
own country. 
When Julius Caesar invaded Britain, about 55 years 
before the birth of our Saviour, it is curious that he 
found that, although their religion would not permit 
them to eat either the hare, the goose, or the hen, yet 
that they kept them all “ as well for novelty as for 
variety ” ( Casa fa Comm., 1. v., c. 10); a description 
which means, if it means anything, that they bred them 
for the mere pleasure of breeding them and varying the 
breed. 
The Romans probably weakened the prejudice against 
eating the domestic fowl; and as it is well known that j 
they strove to improve the British farming and garden- j 
ing, so it is no more than reasonable to conclude that 
poultry shared in the progressive effort. As already | 
observed, our most prevalent breed, the Dorking, share 
the five-toed excellence that characterised the most es¬ 
teemed fowls of Rome. 
When the Anglo-Saxons over-ran Britain in the course 
oi the fifth and sixth centuries, they would still further 
sweep away the poultry-prejudice, for they not only 
bred them, but made them a prominent article of food. 
We have more than one testimony upon this point, but 
the most curious are found in the details of the rent 
reserved for land let in those days of money-scarcity. 
For example, we find one noble Saxon dame received 
annually out of her lauds 40 ambra of malt, a full-grown 
ram, four wethers, 240 loaves of bread, one weight of 
bacon and cheese, four fothers of wood, and 20 hen 
fowls. In the laws of the Saxon King Ina, the amount 
to be rendered was fixed as followsEvery ten hides 
of land shall furnish ten vessels of honey, 300 loaves of 
bread, 12 ambra of Welch ale, 30 ambra of clear ale, 
two full-grown rams, 10 wethers, 10 geese, 20 hens, 10 
cheeses, a full ambra of butter, five salmon, 20 lbs. of 
fodder, and 100 eels.—( Turner's Anglo Saxons, iii. 002.) 
The Normans, in conquering England, caused but 
little change in its farming, either in the tilling of the 
ground or in the management of live stock; we shall, 
therefore, pass over all the intervening period, and shall 
next resume the subject where we find poultry-keeping 
a subject dwelt upon in our national literature. 
BELL-FLOWERED DICTYANTH. 
(.Dictyantlius campanulatus ) 
This plant, extraordinary even among Asclepiads, to which 
it is referable, is a native of Brazil, where the authors 
of the Flora Peruviana, Ruiz and Bavon, mistook it for 
a Stapelia. It is Pavon's Stapelia maculata. This in¬ 
tricate order, however, has been since studied more 
closely, and its limits and divisions have been better 
defined. Dccandole is the author of the name now 
given, which is derived from dietyon, a net, and antUos, 
a flower. It has also been called the Drumhead flower, 
Tympananthe. 
What makes this plant the more remarkable in the 
eyes of the botanist is the excessive development of the 
