80 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, May 10, 1859. 
We have been told that they are most capital layers; and no 
one who has ever seen them will refuse to admit that they are 
also most beautiful fowls. The question is, Are they a distinct 
breed ? “ W. H., Exeter,” states that he has manufactured 
Black Hamburghs from a Spanish cock and Silver-pencilled 
Hamburghs ; and that, too, with success at Exhibitions. This 
would seem to imply that they are not a true breed, because 
they can be manufactured. We know that Black Cochins can 
be manufactured ; but we also are told, on the best authority, 
that there is no such thing as a really black Cochin cock. Con¬ 
sequently, in their case, we could not depend upon like pro¬ 
ducing like if we bred from Black Cochins; and this, I believe, 
is the reason why the Committees at our Shows have excluded 
Black Cochins from their prize lists. Now, is this the case 
with the Black Hamburghs? “Red Ensign” says that they 
breed true. This would not be the case if they were a merely 
manufactured breed; for then the progeny would in course of 
time throw back, and there would be the uumistakeable signs 
of a cross having been made at some time or another. I hope 
that some Black Hamburgh breeder will give us the benefit of 
his experience on this subject. The Brahmas have had a 
severe drilling of late, but still they came well out of it; and 
they deserve all encouragement, for a more useful class of fowl 
does not exist. They are far superior to the Cochins in their 
egg-producing qualities in the winter, and they are. better 
mothers ; and where we find Cochins were kept formerly we 
now find that the Brahmas have superseded them, because they 
are more profitable. 
But the question of “Red Ensign” need not be confined 
to whether Black Hamburghs or Brahmas are a distinct 
breed. It would be hard indeed to say which of our breeds 
of poultry was a real, separate, distinct breed of itself. Take 
our most useful fowl for all purposes—the Dorkings. They 
do not infallibly breed true. Select your cock and hens with 
rose combs as carefully as you will, and behold a single-combed 
chicken will often appear ; and vice versci, a rose-combed chicken 
from single-combed parents. How is this ? The parents throw 
back: but to what do they thus throw back? There is a stain 
somewhere in this our national fowl, as I might term it. In 
fact, the Dorking does not breed true: and if, as Mr. Botham 
and “ Red Ensign ” assert of the Brahma and the Black Ham¬ 
burgh, they do bl eed true, why should not they be acknowledged 
as a distinct breed ? I have no doubt of the Brahma being a 
distinct breed; and I shall be obliged if any of your contributors 
can enlighten me on the subject of the Black Hamburghs. 
Many persons have said they are a strain of the Black Spanish. 
If they are, they are a great improvement on the Spanish : for, 
though the Spanish are a remarkably fine and handsome class 
of bird, yet still they are an over-rated class. Their eggs are 
large, to be sure; their flesh delicious for the table; but 
they are not good winter layers, and they are bad sitters also. 
Now the Black Hamburghs are, as all Hamburghs are, good 
winter layers. Their flesh, too, is excellent for eating ; and if 
people like to keep a black breed of fowl, I think that the Blkck 
Hamburghs are far superior to the Black Spanish in a profitable 
point of view. Unquestionably for general purposes nothing 
can exceed the Dorking. For winter layers the Brahma and 
Cochin arc the best : but for egg-producing qualities nothing 
can touch a Hamburgh ; as witness the return given in your 
periodical some time back by “Silver-Pencilled Hamburgh” 
of having obtained 774 eggs from four Silver-pencilled Ham¬ 
burghs in the course of the twelve mouths of 1856. 
I hope that somebody will clear decks for action with “ Red 
Ensign.” He has fired his gun, and run up the signal, “ Are 
Black Hamburghs a distinct breed?” “England expects 
every man to do his duty.” “ Red Ensign” lias done his duty 
to the poultry world by asking this question; and no one will 
read the answer with greater pleasure than your well wisher— 
Chanticleer. 
PINIONING AVATER FOWL. 
0 UR attention has been drawn by “ Shoveller,” to an assertion 
by Mr. Castang, in a contemporary paper, that “ water fowl 
breed more freely when unpinioned ; that it is a disadvantage, and 
prevents their breeding for many years to pinion them.” We 
are happy to give “ Shoveller ’’ an answer. If a water fowl 
is not pinioned, it is always lost in the winter, when wild birds 
come, and all tameness is forgotten by those that have, perhaps, 
fed from the hand during summer. It is their nature. Even 
birds bred on the water tame, will do so. It is, in fact, im¬ 
possible to keep them full-winged, and equally impossible to catch 
them to cut their wings. We have known them breed in April 
when pinioned in February. 
WARNING TO BEE-FEEDERS. 
The following may be useful to bee-keepers relative to a 
mode not to be adopted to insure their bees having food for 
winter consumption :—I had a stock last autumn which appeared 
lightish. To make sure (as I thought), I put twelve pounds of 
comb into a large cap nicely set up with sticks, and put it on to 
the top of the hive,—a flat-topped straw hive,—all straw, top and 
bottom, with a four-inch hole in the top. At the end of February 
all the bees were dead, and scarcely any of the honey in the cap 
eaten. The hive was full of dead bees without any honey, and 
showing they had died at a time when it was too cold for them 
to ascend for food, even through a four-inch hole. I could 
scarcely have imagined it possible, though a bee-keeper of twenty 
years’ standing. Can any other cause of their death be suggested ? 
The hive was immensely strong in population, and good, and dry, 
and all right.—E. L. R. 
[The mode of feeding, as you detail it, would have answered, 
had you resorted to it earlier. The hive, being “ immensely 
strong in population,” but in weight “ lightish,” ought to have 
had a good supply of food before the cold weather set in, when 
the bees would have removed it from the super into the combs of 
the stock-hive, and it would then have been available for the 
subsequent wants of the family. As you managed matters by 
leaving open the “ four-inch hole ” all the winter, the necessary 
genial warmth escaped, and this, coupled with starvation, led to 
the destruction of the stock.] 
HIVE RAVAGED BY THE GRUBS OF THE 
WAX MOTH. 
A hiIe of bees, which, by the way, was the first I ever had, 
seemed to do very well, passed the winter without my perceiving 
anything extraordinary, and began to work about a month ago, 
very strong; the bees being very active and carrying abundance 
of pollen. Since then, it has gradually become weaker, and has 
carried out much dead brood, in different stages of perfection. Till 
last week, there was scarcely more than one or two bees to be 
seen at a time, and very rarely one with any pollen. They seemed 
only to come out, fly about the mouth, and then went in again. 
In looking into the mouth, I saw several large grubs, or 
maggots, walking about, of about an inch long, of a drab, or 
stone colour, with darker heads. 
I procured a new hive, and taking the old hive off its board, 
turned it upside down, and placed the new one upon it, wrapping 
a table-cloth round both to prevent the escape of the bees, and 
then struck the bottom one for some time with a small switch. 
I waited about four hours, when, on looking, it seemed that 
there were a great many bees in the new hive, and still a great 
many in the old one amongst the combs. I then put the new 
hive in the place of the old one, and the old one upon a board 
beside it; but in the morning the bees went all into the old hive, 
so I considered I had not got the queen out. I have left them 
in that state till I have got your opinion, if you will he kind 
enough to give it me in your following number. 
I found a great many bees in the hive (a common straw hive) ; 
but the new hive, quite empty, seemed to be quite as heavy as the 
old one with both bees and combs. 
One of my neighbours had a hive that just died away the same 
way as mine; and when it was turned up, all the combs were 
covered—indeed, the hive was full of a sort of silky web, with 
passages in which were hundreds of the same sort of grub that I 
saw in mine. 
Since turning mine up, I have fed them, and it seems to have 
given them more life—they are much more active.—H. AY 
[Your stock of bees has been destroyed by the grubs of the wax 
moth, Tinea mellonella. The only chance you had of preserving 
the family was by the process of driving, as attempted by you, into 
a new' hive. If you should succeed in removing the queen bee, 
you might, perhaps, even now, establish a new colony, placing it 
on the original stand, previously thoroughly cleaned. The old 
hive and its contents must be destroyed, being utterly useless for 
the future; and the sooner the better, before t lie moth grubs come 
to maturity.] 
