May 4. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
stowed, should be of proved correctness, let us now conclude 
by reminding our readers, that the evil of such a course lias 
already been manifested in the “Shanghae” race. We 
have been thought to have laid undue stress on the accepta¬ 
tion of this name to the exclusion of the common appella¬ 
tion “ Cochin-Chinas." Our reasoning, however, rested on 
the fact, that the districts around the city of Shanghae had 
given us all our best specimens, while from Cochin-China 
we had no authenticated instance of any such importation. 
Geographical accuracy must ever be considered as an impor¬ 
tant element of the natural history of our Poultry-yards, and 
1 requiring, as we now do, satisfactory testimony on the actual 
j importation of the alleged Brahma Pootra fowl, from the 
! neighbourhood of that river, we again record our protest 
against the use of the word “ Cochin-China,” to distinguish 
fowls imported from a distant country, and, so far as we 
know, not known in that from which they have obtained 
this name. 
THE FIFTH CLAW OF THE DORKING 
FOWL: A DISQUISITION. 
The Royal Agricultural Society’s Prize Essay on Poultry 
teaches us that “ The fowls of this breed have live toes on 
each foot, a peculiarity, if absent, denoting impurity of 
blood.” This opinion should have been qualified, or might 
have been given as an opinion, rather than in the dogmatic 
form of an undoubted matter of fact. It would have been 
i prudent to have cautioned purchasers from buying a so- 
called Dorking Fowl with four toes; but as a matter of fact, 
the above statement is fallacious. Birds of the very purest 
strain sometimes produce chickens with four toes only, and 
this peculiarity occasionally occurs to a large extent; in the 
year 1852, my Dorking Fowls, of whose purity, through 
many generations, at least, there could not be the slightest 
doubt, produced one-fourth of their chickens with four toes— 
an incident which never occurred with the same fowls before, 
nor did it transpire in 1853, although no change in their 
management had taken place. In the same season large 
numbers of the chickens had five toes on one foot and four 
on the other, while several had six toes on one foot and four 
on the opposite. Neither will the converse hold good—the 
fifth toe being by no means a test of purity ; for it will show 
itself through several generations by one cross of Dorking 
blood. In the same year in which my pure bred Dorkings 
produced chickens defective in the number of their claws, 
some half-bred chickens presented this peculiarity in a re¬ 
dundant degree—the cockerels with the plumage, gait, and 
figure of their sire, a game fowl, possessed the fifth toe of 
extreme length and size; and nothing is more common 
than to preceive this supernumerary member on the feet of 
barn-door fowls, which contain in their veins as much va¬ 
riety of “ blood” as is to be found in a Yankee. Yesterday, 
for instance, I saw in the yard of a fanner a fowl which 
resembled a Spangled Hamburgh in colour, but it posses¬ 
sed a fifth toe, and was the offspring of a white game cock 
with a grey spangled fowl not a Dorking, hut probably pos¬ 
sessing through some remote ancestor a faint trace of that 
breed. Is not the fifth toe, after all, an “ abnormal” and 
useless growth ? Did it not spring up originally as a sur¬ 
plus ‘appendage in some fowl of great size, and become 
stamped by hereditary descent through many generations, 
so as to become almost a fixed type, through parties breed¬ 
ing from the large hen, because of her size , and not for the 
purpose of securing this supplementary number to the loco¬ 
motive organ ? 
Some ardent disciples of Natural Theology might be 
offended with the above remarks, and indignantly repudiate 
any such thing as a surplusage in the works of nature.. 
The good Dr. Paley, in his zeal to explain all things, could 
describe the use of one organ in -the human body as being 
“ a stuffing, a soft cushion to fill up a vacancy, or hollow 
which unless occupied would leave the package loose and 
untidy,”—overlooking the fact that such a clumsy expedient 
rather dimned than exalted the skill of the Workman. In 
like manner, he described the use of two large curved teeth 
which emerge from the upper jaw of the Babyroussa, or 
wild hog, as being to support the head of the animal when 
asleep : “ he sleeps standing, and the curved processes are 
hooked upon the branches of trees to support his head.” 
Recent research has proved that the wild hog does not ordi¬ 
narily sleep standing, nor are the huge, curved, and extra¬ 
ordinary bony processes on his head ever used for the pur¬ 
poses described. How much better to confess our ignorance, 
than to resort to such wild explanations as the above. We 
know that man lias had “ dominion” given to him over all 
living things, and can perpetuate any “ malformation” which 
may accidentally spiing up ; nay, he does so when it serves 
Ins purpose. Tn the Annals of Philosophy we are told, that 
a ram accidentally produced on a farm in Connecticut, with 
elbow-shaped fore legs, and a great shortness and weakness 
of joint indeed, in all four extremities, was selected for 
breeding purposes, and that a flock was thus procured which 
was unable to climb over fences. Again, by excluding all 
black sheep from the breeding pen, we have white flocks ; it 
is equally certain we might have entire black ones, if the 
opposite plan were pursued. Can any one maintain that 
long horns curving into and growing through the cheeks of 
the bovine tribe are other than a natural defect, and yet how 
common was this in the palmy days of the almost extinct 
“ Long Horns" of Bakewell, Princep, and Mundy ? Horace, 
who flourished in the Augustan age, some two thousand years 
ago, sang that the brave were created by the brave and good, 
and that the converse is equally true, indeed the poet said— 
“ Ebrii gignunt ebrios 
and we are sure that we can at any time produce hair or 
wool on the backs of sheep, by selecting for the first the 
wild sheep of Ethiopia or Siberia, and for the second the 
beautiful sheep of Mr. Sandys, or the native animals of 
Thibet. But enough—my neighbour, who rends the -Re¬ 
porter, as he smokes his pipe on a Friday evening, is already 
exclaiming what on earth has Dr. Paley and Horace and 
wild hogs, and Long horns, and Siberian sheep to do with 
the fifth claw of the Dorking fowl ? Much every way they 
intimate that a natural defect may have been perpetuated in 
the desire to secure other qualities of a high character with 
which this supernumerary appendage happened to be asso¬ 
ciated. That it is a defect (if such a paradoxical term may 
be applied to a thing in excess), is certain, for some high¬ 
bred chickens now before me, have great difficulty in walk¬ 
ing, in consequence of these prolongations from each foot 
becoming entangled with each other; and suffer some pain 
from the abrasion which constant friction has produced upon 
each supernumerary toe.—J. H .—(Derby Reporter). 
POULTRY-YARD REPORT. 
SHANGHAE V . SPANISH. 
I send you the report for the month of March. It is, 
undoubtedly, in favour of the Minorca race, both for number 
and weight. For many days only* one Shanghae was un¬ 
occupied in maternal duties; and one of the others, during 
the early part of the month, repaired to her nest almost 
daily without depositing an egg: she is now diligently sit¬ 
ting. The report, then, stands thus :— 
SHANGHAE. 
Two now sitting. Five have 
been engaged with chickens. 
One only laying throughout 
the month. 
Number for the month 44 
lbs. oz. drs. 
Total weight.... 4 fi 7 
Highest weight 
of single egg .024 
MINORCA. 
Not in thorough laying. 
None, however, broody. One 
pullet has not yet laid. 
Number for the month oft 
lbs. oz. drs. 
Total weight.... 7 11 0 
Highest weight 
of single egg .024 
The single egg of the Shanghae was double yolked, laid 
on the 8th; the same hen having laid another on the 1st, 
weighing 2 oz. 3 dr., also double yolked.—II. B. S., Mon¬ 
mouthshire. 
