THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION.— Jury 8, 1850. 
Punch’s happy and pregnant invention, “Felix Rabbit.” 
They are the most observant, retentive, yet explicit of 
alectryonologists. To produce such reports as theirs, so 
large a combination of small talents is called into action, 
that they will always be rare, and always curious. As it is 
one great characteristic of “ truth,” that whenever a bit of 
it, however homely, is brought plainly into view, it casts 
unexpected light upon many other fragments—previously but 
half understood—these poultry records assume a value far 
beyond that of their theme. A series of facts, carefully 
observed and plainly told, is of value to everybody. Thus 
a diary of the poultry-yard may become interesting, not only 
to chicken-fanciers, but to the sportsman, the stock-breeder, 
the physiologist, the scientific historian, or the omnivorous 
student of natural theology. Then, apart from the good 
done by hobbies, as general humanizers, they are real 
benefactors to society. Their riders, intent only on trifles, 
perhaps, accumulate a mass of accurate observations, which 
are immensely instructive to the labourer in a wider field of 
learning. 
No one need be ashamed of his minute details; so I put 
on paper the points to which my attention has been at¬ 
tracted during two years’ poultry-keeping. 
I had read many statements about influencing the sex of 
progeny by mating parents of different ages. I had also 
seen many receipts for securing a brood of all cockerels, or 
all pullets, by carefully selecting the eggs by their shape. 
I think I have proved that neither the one nor the other 
method can be relied on. I have put old and young birds 
together; picked round and long eggs, and set them sepa¬ 
rately ; but I have never seen such uniformity of result as 
warrants one in declaring a law to go by. Sex in progeny 
is decided by influences more recondite than either of these. 
From two parents, each one year old, I this year had 
three broods ; two of eleven each, one of nine. The first 
consisted of nine females and two males; the second of 
seven males and four females; the nine, had six males and 
three females. From a three-year-old cock running with a 
pullet I had a brood entirely of cockerels. From the same 
cock and another pullet I bad a brood of equal numbers of 
each sex. In the broods from a two-year-old cock and 
pullets, now one sex prevailed, now the other. My last 
year's experience was very similar. Without any apparent 
cause there was a preponderance of male chickens at one 
time, and females at another, and without there being any 
noticeable difference in the shape of each hen’s egg. 
Another thing might also be seen. At one period of the 
laying traces of a bygone cross would bo clearly detected, 
which was undiscernible before and after that particular 
time. For instance, I have a yellow Cochin hen, from 
which I have bred for two seasons. Nothing could be more 
true to colour than were her first twenty chickens last year. 
I do not think there was one among them that would not 
have been called yellow, too. A “ June ” brood, after these, 
consisted of nine chickens, of which six were decidedly 
dark cinnamons; yet in a later brood the mother's colour 
again prevailed, and the whole were yellow. 
Why should this variation in colour occur, when the sire 
and the keep of the parents never varied? Yet it has hap¬ 
pened again this year; in one brood only the dark feathers 
re-appear. 
Another lien’s produce was liable to a different aberration. 
She had a taint of Dorking blood, as I suppose, some gene¬ 
rations btek. I know her parents for two generations have 
been pure Cochins. Nothing could be more thoroughbred 
than were her earliest progeny last year and this. Yet, from 
a late sitting of her eggs in 1855, three cockerels sported 
magnificent white sickle-feathers in their tails. In none of 
the other broods did this occur. I fancied the hen had had 
access to another cock, although I could not conceive where 
it should have happened. Rut again this year, I see, some 
chickens of hers, in one brood, are showing unusually early 
tails, and I am sure there can have been no mesalliance. 
There is a latent taint, which appears for a time and disap¬ 
pears again; no one can tell why. 
One thing, I think, is determined. Such eccentricities 
have always been seen at the close of a protracted laying. It 
seems as if, in the debilitated condition caused by artificially- 
prolonged productiveness, “ sports,” to use the florist’s 
term, are to be expected. It is a curious question, how long 
2-55 
these latent tendencies may remain unsuspected, and why 
they should occur in a number of eggs consecutively. Rut 
I think this is quite long enough a trespass on your co¬ 
lumns from— Lantern. 
THE WILD BLUE ROCK PIGEON. 
COLUMBA SAXATILIS LIYIDA. 
French. German. 
Pigeon Biset Sauvage. Die Bergtaube. 
The name of Blue Rock Pigeon is so generally in use, 
that one might naturally suppose that this was a common 
bird; but, on the contrary, it is comparatively a very rare one. 
I allude to the real Blue Rock Pigeon, Columba Livia of 
some naturalists; and not to the Chequered Dove-house 
Pigeon, Columba agrestis; nor to the tree-perching Stock 
Dove, Columba (Enas, which might be appropriately called 
Palumbus minor, with both of which it is very often confused, 
ami from each of them it is quite distinct. The Blue Rock 
Tigeon is a trifle smaller tli^the common Pigeon, being 
more slender in its proportions ; the bill is thin and dark, 
the eyes a bright orange red, and prominent; the feet red, 
and the nails dark; the general colour of its plumage is a 
clear, light, greyish-blue, having a greenish gloss on the 
neck, varied with violet and copper reflections; the se¬ 
condary wing feathers and the larger covert feathers have 
each a black spot, which form two distinct black bars on the 
wings; the rump is white ; the tail has a black band near the 
extremity; and the external feather on each side has a white 
outer margin. 
The Blue Rock Pigeons do not frequent woods and trees, 
like the Stock Dove ; neither are they so easily domesticated 
as the Dove-house Pigeons. The true Rock Pigeons are ex¬ 
ceedingly wild and shy; they frequent rocks, cliffs, caves, and 
caverns, preferring the sea-coast, and nestling among the 
most inaccessible rocks, frequently in company of gulls 
and other sea-birds, where the old ones are sometimes shot 
by the adventurous sportsman, or the nest still more rarely i 
robbed of the young birds. 
A few of our old baronial dovecots, I believe, are still | 
peopled by this sort of Pigeon ; but they are very restless, 
and avoid the haunts of man, and, I believe, are difficult to 
domesticate. They do not produce more than two, or at 
most, three pairs of young ones in the season. Intract¬ 
able and fond of liberty as the Blue Rock Pigeon is, it 
has been almost overlooked by some, while other naturalists 
have named it as the origin of all (?) ourtame Pigeons; but ! 
I think this, as well as the Stock Dove, must surrender its 
claims to the Dove-liouse Pigeon in this respect.—B. P. 
Brent. 
WHAT ARE CREVE CCEURS? 
At the Paris Agricultural Exhibitions the first place is 
awarded to the variety of poultry termed Grove Coeurs. On 
this side of the Channel there is somo doubt as to what are 
the distinguishing characters of this breed, to which so 
great a degree of importance is attached by our neighbours. 
As a breeder of these birds, I have much pleasure in calling 
attention to their great merits in a profitable point of view, 
and in describing their characters from practical observa¬ 
tion, and from the French work on poultry, printed under 
the authority of the Minister of Agriculture, in which they 
are thus described :— 
“ In Normandy, especially in the neighbourhood of Grove 
Occur, there is a variety of fowl which supplies Paris with 
the handsome poultry with which the markets abound. 
“ The hens are low on the legs, with large, fleshy thighs, 
the wings large, and the body square; the abdomen is 
voluminous and pendent, especially in those which are more 
than a year old ; they walk slowly, scratch but little, and do 
not fly. Their plumage is black, or black and white varie¬ 
gated ; they carry on their heads a large tuft, and a small 
upright two-liorned comb; whilst a large cravat of feathers 
under the neck gives to them a matronly air. They are very- 
tame, ramble but little, and prefer seeking their food on the 
dunghill in the poultry-yard to wandering afar off. They 
are somewhat later in laying, and, perhaps, lay les? frq- 
