October 3. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
13 
Class 33.— Bantams (Any other variety).—First prize, T. Moore, 
Yeovil. Second prize, E. H. Burge, Taunton. 
Class 34.— Bantam Chicken (Any other variety).—First prize, E. H. 
Burge. Second prize withheld. 
Class 35.— Turkeys. —First prize, Charles Edwards. Second prize, 
Miss Julia Milward, Newton St. Loe. 
Class 36.— Geese. —First and second prizes, Mrs. E. Brook, Key 
Farm, Yeovil. 
Class 37.— Ducks (Any variety).—First prize, Henry Lucas Bean, 
Ashcott. (Aylesbury.) Second prize, John Marshall, Belmont, Taunton. 
(Rouen.) Extra second prize, Tlios. Moore, of Yeovil. (Aylesbury.) 
Class' 38.— For the best collection of Pigeons. —Prize, to 
Thomas Twose, Bridgewater. 
Any other distinct breed of Fowls, —First prize, John Marshall, 
Taunton. (Brahma Pootra.) First prize, Mrs. E. Harding, Speclcington. 
(Persian.) Second prize, Mrs. E. Harding. (Persian.) Second prize, 
T. M. Gunn. (Black Hamburgh.) Second prize, Win. Manfield, jun., 
Dorchester. (Rumpless.) 
FRENCH NOSEGAYS. 
I was quite delighted with the article on “ French 
Bouquets,” at page 401, hy T. F. Keir. I could not write a 
better one myself if I had gone to Paris on purpose. I have 
seen a thousand nosegays in each of the seven forms he 
I describes, not after they were made, hut in the actual doing 
of them. I hope all the lads and lasses who read The 
Cottage Gardener “ ayant the Tweed ” will learn to make 
j some of them at least. Most of the young ladies and gen¬ 
tlemen all over England do a good deal that way: Covent 
I Garden is also fast improving in this branch ; how they 
I get on in Erin, we never hear. When I was, during the other 
day, under the great toe of the first, or some King of Kent, 
! in the Crystal Palace, I saw some large nosegays being 
made behind the counter, of very simple flowers, such as 
j are reported from Paris, by one, or rather two of the young 
j women waiters ; the one picking out such and such flowers 
| from a heap of them, and the other making them into table- 
nosegays for dinner. The style was pyramidal, the manu¬ 
facture was unexceptionable; but the colours were not in 
contrast or in harmony: still, most of the people round me, 
j and they all looked as being better off than myself, praised 
I these nosegays very much. I said nought, for no one asked 
my opinion; but I thought to myself, this is just like a 
beautifully-written letter full of bad spelling and worse 
grammar; but I lost sight of the subject in the next Court, 
and would nover have thought of it were it not from reading 
1 that communication from Paris. We want more cultivation 
in nosegays, certainly; but we shall not get on so well by 
| finding fault as hy keeping the subject alive in an off-hand 
manner; and all I want at present is, to drive a peg in the 
J wall for P. F. Keir to hang another article on it, of the same 
stamp, when his leisure will allow him. The greatest diffi¬ 
culty here is the actual work, or construction of a nosegay. 
There is as much art and care required for building a nose¬ 
gay as are necessary to build a house : the two styles are 
opposite,—nosegays being built from top to bottom. How is 
the foundation laid? How put on, and what are the mortar, 
nails, glue, hinges, locks, and knockers?—D. Beaton. 
THE SEBRIGHT BANTAM. 
Many and varied have been the statements in explanation 
of the origin of the Sebright Bantam. None, perhaps, have 
been altogether satisfactory; but remembering the caution 
with which the system pursued by the individual whose 
name they have since borne was guarded from publicity, 
this need not excite surprise. 
Among the more dubious of these accounts, one of a 
startling nature has lately been advanced, which seems, 
indeed, so contradictory to all analogical reason on this 
subject, that, whether correct or otherwise, it should he 
noticed by the Poultry literature of the day. We refer to a 
statement that the late Sir John Sebright and others, who 
occupied themselves in the same task, produced the Laced 
j Bantam by crossing other Bantams with the Polish Fowl 
(the Spangled variety, we presume, is here meant), and that 
occasional re-crossing with the Black Bantam was also 
another part of the process. 
Without actually trying the experiment, it should not be 
asserted that such an intermingling of breeds would cer¬ 
tainly. fail to give the desired result; but surely a vast 
majority of poultry-breeders would regard with the utmost 
incredulity the success of such attempts either to produce, 
or to continue, a race of Laced Bantams. The top-knot and 
comb of the Polish, indeed, would involve the eradication of 
other points beyond those which, in the supposition of the 
Spangled Hamburghs, sometimes considered to have entered 
into the composition of the laced Bantam, would have to he 
got rid of. At recent Exhibitions, it has been a common 
subject of remark that, for the sake of fresh blood, the 
Spangled Hamburghs, especially the Golden ones, have been 
crossed with Bantams ; but the experiment has hardly been 
sufficiently successful to lead to its repetition. Those who 
have practised this course, however, would have been 
encouraged by the presence of characteristics in some Ham¬ 
burghs, where the square tail and the absence of hackle 
betokened points of resemblance to the essential properties 
of the Laced Bantam, which were altogether wanting in the 
Polish, not to dwell on the comb and top-knot of the latter. 
But is it not far more probable that these Laced birds are 
“ pure Bantams,” though evidence may be wanting to trace 
them back, either to the Nankin, the Spangled, or any other 
variety of that family ? If originally produced by the inter¬ 
mixture of a larger fowl, more particularly in the instance 
of the Polish, there would be, at least, an occasional recur¬ 
rence to the features of such an ancestor, of which, with all 
the present short comings of the Laced birds, there is no 
sign. The tokens of a cross, indeed, are manifest in the 
constant result of breeding in-and-in, when the Laced 
Bantam quickly loses its peculiarity of marking, and 
becomes spotted, or irregularly spangled, and at times a 
yellqw, resembling the plumage of the Nankin bird. 
If the derivation of the Laced Bantam from the Polish 
should be grounded on the fact that feathers (the wing- 
coverts particularly) are found more perfectly laced in that 
latter bird than in any other fowl, the other difficulties are 
too lightly compensated, and it would, moreover, he no 
arduous task to select Spangled Bantams, more or less 
laced on that part of their feather, without having the 
incumbrance of comb and top-knot to he banished, and how 
improbable would be success in such an endeavour requires 
no proof to those who are anyways acquainted with the 
subject. 
But if the obstacles to the statement alluded to are not 
founded in fact, a new feature is presented to poultry-fan¬ 
ciers, and the disappointment of those who have been san¬ 
guine in the permanency of characteristics in cross-bred 
fowls may yet he overcome. These remarks are necessarily 
but a very brief reference to the explanation of a confessedly 
doubtful point, and very possibly some of the correspondents 
of The Cottage Gardener may be able to quote facts 
in support or contradiction of the special circumstances that 
have been offered in the statement alluded to. 
The writer’s own conclusions are certainly adverse to the 
idea of an ancestral connexion between the Laced Bantam 
and the Polish Fowl; nor would his way he clearer towards 
recognising the utility of the blood of the Black Bantam for 
the continuance of the former variety. W. 
DEFORMED EGGS—STALE EGGS. 
Having been given to understand that deformed eggs will 
not produce a chicken, by gentlemen connected with Poultry 
breeding, I was induced to try the experiment by placing 
one in my machine, which was in when your representative 
called on me, he having marked the same. 
I now beg to state, that the same egg has this morning 
produced a line large chicken, of the Dorking breed, per¬ 
fectly healthy. L shall preserve the shell for inspection, and 
any person wishing to see the same can do so by calling at 
my residence. 
I have also read that stale eggs will generally produce 
deformed chickens; this I beg to protest against, having 
hatched four Turkey eggs, about six weeks old, which had 
travelled a great distance on two railways. 
I have also, in my machine, four Musk Duck eggs, which 
