60 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY 
POULTRY SHOWS. 
Junk 3 rd, 4th, and 5th. Batii and West of England. Sec., Mr. 
John Kingsbury, 10, Haramet Street, Taunton. Entries close the 1st 
of May. 
July 8 th, 9 th, and 10 th, 1857. Leamington. Sec., Thomas Grove. 
July 9 th. Prescot. Sec., J. F. Ollard. 
August 8 th, 10th, 11 th, and 12th. Crystal Palace. Sec., W. 
Houghton. 
September 2 nd. Dewsbury. See., Harrison Brooke, Esq. 
October 1st and 2nd. Worcester. 
September 7 th, 8 th, 9 th, 10 th. Gloucester. Sec., Mr. H. Churchill, 
King’s Head Hotel. 
December l 6 th and 17th. Nottinghamshire. Entries close No¬ 
vember 18th. Hon.Sec., Mr. R. Hawksley, jun., Southwell. 
January 9th, 11th, 12th, and 13th, 1858. Crystal Palace. 
January 19 th, 20th, 21st, and 22nd, 1858. Nottingham Central. 
Sec., Mr. Etherington, jun., Notintone Place, Sneinton, near Notting¬ 
ham. 
N.B.— Secretaries will oblige us by sending early copies of their lists. 
GAME FOWLS, COLOUR OF THEIR LEGS 
AND OTHER POINTS. 
The remarks I addressed to you on Game fowls, and 
which appeared in The Cottage Gardener of February 3rd, 
have elicited several communications, which have been 
published in your pages. Your correspondents “ W. H.” 
and “ Newmarket,” whose communications are given in The 
Cottage Gardener of February 24th, do, in the main, con¬ 
firm my opinions on this subject. “ W. H.” agrees with me 
in thinking that too much importance is attached to mere size 
in awarding prizes to Game fowls, and that white, yellow, and 
blue are the primitive colours for Game fowls’ legs. “ New¬ 
market,” in whose communication I see indications of much 
experience, approves of what I said on the general charac¬ 
teristics of Game fowls, but prefers olive legs to white or 
blue. To the latter he objects as bearing too close a resem¬ 
blance to the common Barn-door fowl. I think the reason 
why the latter fowls are seldom found with olive or yellow 
legs is because they are kept either for eggs or to supply 
the table; and, for tho latter purpose, fowls with white or 
blue legs can, in this country, command a higher price in 
the market. If “ Newmarket ” considers olive legs peculiar 
to Game fowls let him try the effect of a cross between a 
yellow-legged cock and a common blue-legged Barn-door 
hen. I am much mistaken if a large proportion of the 
chickens would not have olive legs. Some, no doubt, would 
follow the colour of one parent, and some of the other; but 
in many the olive colour would appear as the result of the 
cross. Your correspondent “ W.,” in The Cottage Gar¬ 
dener of February 17th, doubts this; but it does not appear 
that he has ever made the experiment, and the opinion I 
have stated is founded on many experiments. Nor can I 
agree with him that white legs give “ an appearance of soft¬ 
ness ” to Game fowls, and they are an essential point in the 
j celebrated breed known as the “ Derby Reds.” I must still, 
| therefore, adhere to my opinion that yellow, white, and blue 
are primitive colours, and that olive is a mixed colour pro¬ 
duced by crossing. I am not sure that black ought not to 
be admitted as a primitive colour for Game fowls’ legs, as 
I we often find among the Brown-breasted Reds, Blacks, and 
Brassy wings, birds very accurately marked in feather with 
legs of this colour, and it does not appear to be, like the 
j oli 7 e \ e o> the result of crossing. To yellow legs I have no 
j objection; indeed, the brilliancy of plumage with which 
they are generally associated must be a strong recommenda¬ 
tion to every poultry fancier. Nor do I think the flesh of 
the yellow or even olive-legged birds at all inferior in quality 
to the white or blue-legged fowls ; but, as there is a feeling, 
. perhaps I should say a prejudice, against them in this 
country, they will not command the same price in the 
; roarket. N one of your correspondents have advanced any¬ 
thing which has weakened my objection to olive legs. That 
objection is founded on the following facts They are the 
result of a cioss, and not an original colour; they add 
nothing to the beauty of the fowl; and they depreciate its 
i value for domestic purposes. 
As to the exhibitions, there is at present but one rule, 
GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION, April 28, 1857. 
namely, that in the Game classes the pens must match in 
the colour of the legs ; and in some varieties, as the Black¬ 
breasted Reds, we find birds well marked in feather with 
blue, yellow, white, and olive legs, but I doubt this being 
the case with all varieties of Game fowls ; take, for instance, 
the Duckwings. In my communication to you I described 
what I think is the genuine colour both of the Duckwing 
hen and Duckwing cock, and the general correctness of that 
description has not been disputed. The Duckwing hen, I 
said, should be of a uniform slaty grey on the back, shoulders, 
and wings. I have bred Duckwing hens of this colour from 
the blue-legged and from the white-legged birds, but I have 
never succeeded in breeding them from the yellow-legged 
birds. The latter have always been more or less brown on 
the wing, and this I consider a fatal defect in Duckwing 
hens as exhibition birds; for, if Duckwing hens, brown on 
the wing and only grey on the back, and Duckwing cocks 
with red saddles are admissible, they may be bred equally 
well from a hen of the Black Red variety and a Duckwing 
cock as from genuine Duckwings. A few weeks ago I saw a 
pen of Game fowls which had been exhibited as Duckwings, 
and had taken several prizes and obtained a silver cup at 
one of the large shows. They were yellow-legged birds. 
The hens were grey on the back, but very brown on the 
wing; the cock a little red on the saddle. As soon as I saw 
them I said I did not consider them genuine Duckwings, 
but cross bred between the Black Reds and Duckwings, and 
the owner of the fowls admitted that this was the case. The 
silver cup in this instance was awarded by a gentleman who 
is considered one of our best poultry Judges. 
If there is any strain of yellow-legged Duckwings of the 
colour I contend for I have nothing to say against them ; 
but if we cannot have yellow-legged Duckwing hens without 
brown wings I think I am justified in giving the preference 
to white and blue legs in this variety of Game fowls. The 
olive-legged Duckwings are generally tolerably true in 
colour, perhaps from intermixture with the blue-legged 
strains. 
Among the Black-breasted Reds I believe we have two 
perfectly distinct strains. In one the hens are dark brown 
on the back, shoulders, and wings, and partridge feathered ; 
in the other the hens are lightish cinnamon colour, and 
without the partridge pencilling. The latter, in this part of 
the country, are called, by the old breeders, wheat-coloured 
hens. The partridge hen has a striped hackle, but the 
cinnamon or wheat-coloured hen has a clear hackle. Some 
breeders insist that the brown or partridge-coloured hen is 
the only legitimate colour; but there are unquestionable 
Game hens of the other colour which breed Black-breasted 
Red cocks, and if they are not rightly classed with the Black 
Reds I know not to what variety they are to be assigned. 
The majority of Game hens at our shows in the Black Red 
classes appear to be bred between these strains, and are of 
an intermediate colour, that is, they are partridge feathered 
down the back, and an unpencilied brown or cinnamon 
colour on the wings. 
Some of the varieties enumerated by “ Newmarket ” I am 
not familiar with, and wish he had described them, and 
stated his grounds for considering them primitive varieties. 
“ Yellow Duckwings, Silver Duckwings, Greys, and Dark 
Greys,” form a rather comprehensive list, and some of the 
designations are new to me. The “ Berry Birchen Yellows,” 
or, as they are called here, the “ Birchen Yellows,” are 
probably a pure variety ; and the Brown Reds which he also 
refers to undoubtedly are, and are as clearly defined in all 
points as any of our Game fowls. 
The Piles “Newmarket” considers to be' the result of a 
cross. This may be so, but in several experiments which I 
have made I have entirely failed to breed a single well- 
marked Pile by crossing, and I have tried both the Black 
Red and Duckwings with the White Game fowl. Some of 
the chickens approached very nearly the right colours, but 
all the cocks had black feathers in the tail—a defect, in my 
opinion, incompatible with a first-class Pile. 
In this neighbourhood we have two kinds of Game fowls 
in which the cocks are hen feathered. In one variety they 
are partridge coloured, in the other cinnamon. I have 
never seen these birds in the south of England, nor the 
Spangled, which the old breeders here consider a pure 
variety. The cocks of the latter kind are black, white, and 
