344 THE COTTAGE GARDENER. August 26. 
hoped that many owners of fowls which are little known 
will remember the existence of this class, and will, when 
the occurrence or recurrence of exhibitions shall offer the 
opportunity, favor fellow-amateurs and others with a sight 
of their rarities. 
There are, doubtless, many handsome and profitable kinds 
; of poultry in different parts of the world which are almost 
! unknown and unnoticed in England. In America, I am 
i told, there are good and beautiful kinds; in Russia, there 
1 are some which are so much valued there, that it is almost 
' impossible for strangers to obtain them; and in Turkey, the 
Cochin-China were known and highly prized while still 
strangers here, having passed into that country by way of 
Asia. A few years back, while the Cochin-China fowls were 
yet unknown to me, and after I had met with only disap¬ 
pointment in an endeavour to discover in the Spanish the 
good qualities often attributed to them, I was told of some 
fowls to be found in Turkey, possessing size and other good 
qualities in great perfection, and I, of course, became imme¬ 
diately very anxious to buy some of these rare birds. Seve¬ 
ral of our friends, at that time living in Constantinople, and 
their friends, kindly placed themselves in full pursuit of 
these wonderful fowls, but without success, and we were, 
after some time, obliged to give up the idea of having them. 
Last year, one of our Constantinople friends came to London 
to see our Exhibition, and on his return, I sent by him a 
Cochin-China cockerel and two pullets, as a present to his 
father. During the voyage, many persons from the different 
ports came on board to see these wonderfully large fowls 
■with a strange, unearthly crow, and on the arrival of the 
ship at Constantinople, it was found that these were the very 
same fowls which I had been so anxious to obtain from 
Turkey ; which had, however, become very scarce there, and 
which, if ever sold at all, were only to be purchased for an 
enormous price. As another proof of the productiveness of 
the Cochin-China fowls (if, now that they are so well known, 
another proof can be needful), I must mention that these 
pullets continued to lay eggs throughout the voyage, in spite 
of weather so tempestuous that it was difficult for the 
captain to save them from being drowned in their coop. 
About eight years ago, a young sailor, who had served in 
our family before he went to sea, brought me a fowl from 
the Cape of Good Hope, of a kind which I have never seen 
since. He (for it was a cock bird) was entirely jet black, 
with long scarlet wattles, and a very full rose comb; the 
shape of his head and his neck were Malay-like, and his tail 
drooping. He was very upright in carnage, and so tall that 
he looked tall by the side of a fine Spanish cock. He was 
certainly very handsome; of his other good qualities I had 
little opportunity of judging, for very soon after I had him, 
he and his rival, the Spanish cock, got together and fought, 
although we had fancied them securely separated, and both 
ultimately died from the injuries which they then received. 
I never hut once saw a bird like him, and that I have always 
thought must have been brought over at the same time ; for 
the same sailor had two cocks with him in that voyage. 
This second bird, I saw exhibited at a poultry exhibition, in 
the Zoological Gardens, Regent’s Park : lie was mated with 
hens very unlike himself, and the coop was labelled “ Crow 
birds.” 
The curiously-shaped, and, I think, curiously ugly Rump- 
less fowl is shown in this fortieth class of the Birmingham 
j Show; with regard to the ugliness, howevei', one opinion is 
: no rule, for I, who think the Cochin-Chinas very pretty, 
have heard them pronounced “ curiously ugly," because, poor 
things, they have no tails, and I should be sorry to depreciate 
anyones favourites. The Rumpkin, rumpless, or tailless 
fowls are little known, and to be met with but rarely; they 
are said, by some who have tried them, to he good layers, 
good mothers, and good birds for the table. The entire 
absence of tail gives a curious shortness to their form, they 
have an upright gait and a somewhat heavy look about the 
head; those which I have seen have been dark in color and 
with rose combs. Richardson gives hut an indifferent cha¬ 
racter of these birds, and one rather at variance with the 
above, for he says they neither possess good flesh nor afford 
good eggs. 
The equally curious, and, I believe, equally unpopular, 
Silk fowl is also shown in this class. It is rather larger 
than the bantam ; the plumage, from the texture of which 
it is named, is more like silky hair than feathers ; in color it 
is white or cream color, and it has a rose comb of a some¬ 
what dusky color. The egg is white, and as small as that of 
the bantam. 
Many other sorts take their station here. The Frizzled, 
or frightened hen, with her fantastic appearance : the splen- 
didly-plumaged, elegantly-formed, Jungle cock —so difficult 
to mate: the Spangled Spanish, which I know I have wrongly 
named, and which should by rights take place among its 
countrymen—the Spanish : the long-known, long-familiar, 
Cuckoo fowl, and fowls from many English counties, some 
of which may be as deserving of notice as the better known 
and much admired Dorking. Anster Bonn. 
THE DOMESTIC PIGEON. 
{Continued from page 280.) 
The inconveniences of not allowing Pigeons to rear 
their Young. —The reader has seen in what manner 
pigeons disgorge into the beak of their young ones a kind of 
pap, which has a great analogy with the milk of quadrupeds. 
If we deprive a quadruped of its young as soon as these are 
horn, the milk, not finding its natural passage, causes such 
disorder there that is frequently followed by very serious 
consequences. If we deprive pigeons of their young, the 
liquid pap which they should give them, not finding any 
issue, causes such disorder that it is quickly followed by 
death, unless an immediate remedy is resorted to. 
Generally, when pigeons cannot feed their young, either 
from their having set on clear eggs, or their young ones 
having died in the shell, or been taken from them soon after 
their birth, we soon perceive the symptoms of this complaint, 
by their constrained and singular movements, plainly indi¬ 
cating uneasiness in every part of their body. Indigestions 
immediately follow, then a cutaneous eruption suddenly 
covers the whole skin with a kind of itch or scab, which is 
improperly called the leprosy. Sometimes this eruption is 
not general, but comes out in different parts, and forms 
deposites very dangerous, and frequently incurable. These 
deposites first appear in the shape of small, round tumours, 
enclosing a yellowish mattery liquid ; the tumour increases 
rapidly, and sometimes becomes as large as a small nut. 
The humour it encloses hardens, and has the consistency 
and appearance of the yolk of a hard-boiled egg, and im¬ 
plants itself in the muscles as if it had taken root there : the 
disease quickly increases, the animal lingers some time, and 
dies if not operated upon. If the deposites are inward, every 
assistance is useless. There are two ways of treatment 
existing to cure this complaint; the first is always the best, 
because it at once arrests the progress. It consists in giving 
the pigeons that have no brood a young strange pigeon to 
feed. This substitution must be made cautiously in the 
night, during their sleep; for if they perceive it, very 
possibly, instead of taking care of it, and bringing it up, they 
throw it out of the nest after having killed it. This generally 
happens when they have two given them, therefore, we must 
take the precaution of only giving them one; first, for this 
reason, and secondly, not to run the risk of the pair from 
which the young are taken being attacked with the same 
disease we would cure in the others. It is not always 
indispensable to give them a young one born the same 
day that their incubation should have finished; it might 
be one or two days older, as that would have no influence 
on their way of receiving it. If we have no young pigeons 
for them to adopt, it will he necessary to try another treat¬ 
ment. We must take them from the dovecote, and place 
them in a separate apartment, or breeding cage. There 
we must condemn them to a rigorous diet; to be continued 
as long as we can feel with the finger a hard substance, 
or swelling at the bottom of their throat, occasioned by 
the inflammation and tumefaction of the lacteal glands. 
During this time of abstinence, we must give them water 
to drink, with a few drops of vinegar in it. If the dis¬ 
ease has made progress, and the deposit appears in the 
shape of a tumour, we should open it with a sharp instru¬ 
ment, extract the matter, and burn the surface of the W'ound 
with caustic. Some persons content themselves.by eating it 
off with salt; but this is a much slower method, and the 
