FANCIERS’ 
JOURNAL AND POULTRY EXCHANGE. 
547 

THE ORIGIN OF BRAHMAS. 
I.—WHAT’S IN A NAME? 
~ 
For many weeks past, as was stated in this Journal some 
weeks back, the discussion on this old subject has been re- 
vived by Mr. G. P. Burnham in all the American poultry 
journals, occupying pages upon pages of their space; and as 
I have had the misfortune to write a book upon ‘The 
Brahma Fowl,” in which, for what I thought adequate rea- 
sons, I have declined to place credence in Mr. Burnham’s 
account of its history, I incur all the disadvantages which a 
very old book couples with authorship, and have had a lively 
time of it lately reading—so far as my spare time would 
allow me—rather warm criticism by the yard, and I régret 
that some of the things said oblige some kind of notice. I 
regret it, I say, because in this country the subject will now 
possess little interest. If what I feel bound to quote and to 
reply to does awaken interest, then I shall not regret it by 
any means. 
The first article on the subject, which is also the most 
material, and by far in the best taste, is in the American 
Fanciers’ Journal of June 11th. To quote this article entire 
would occupy five columns ; but as the drift of most of it is to 
contend that Mr. Burnham never had anything to do with 
calling the fowls in question ‘‘ Brahmas,”’ it will be enough 
to quote the main paragraphs, so far as regards this head of 
his argument. The other points he raises I will deal with 
further on. 
‘‘ Neither ‘F. R. W.’ in his exceptions, or Mr. Wright 
in his book, touch the main question at issue in this contro- 
versy, strange to say—and that is, as to the time when, 
and the mode in which, this name ‘ Brahmapootra,’ or 
‘Brahma’ came about, and my aversion to it, and I will 
therefore explain. 
‘‘T have often smiled at this talk and zeal on Mr. Wright’s 
part to ery me and my fowls down, and frequently I have 
been urged to reply tohim. I invariably used to do so, and 
have said a hundred times to friends: ‘ Why, bless you, Mr. 
Wright is all at sea in this matter! He is talking and 
writing about what does not concern me at all. He writes 
about the ‘* Brahma fowl ”’ and of ‘‘ Brahmapootras.’’ What 
have I to do with ‘‘ Brahmapootraism ?”’ I have no ‘“ Brah- 
mapootras ;’? I never had; I never claimed to have had. 
My fowls are the ‘“‘ Gray Shanghais ’—light and dark, my 
dear sir.’ 
“These had steadily been my assertions; still, Mr. 
Wright keeps calling me hard names, declaring that | 
‘never had any genuine Brahmas’ (who says I did?) and 
that ‘ Burnham might have breed some tolerable imitation 
Brahmas’ (which I did not). I had never even said I had 
any ‘ Brahmas’ whatever, genuine or imitation; that I ever 
tried to breed ‘ Brahmas,’ or pretended I did. I had never 
even called my fowls ‘ Brahmas,’ and never would; and I 
surely made no statement, oral or written, in which Mr. 
Cornish’s fowls were involved, where 1 was a witness ‘more’ 
or ‘less reliable,’ as Mr. Wright states, because his ‘ Chitta- 
gongs’ or ‘ Brahmapootras,’ or whatever he named them, 
never interfered with my ‘Gray Shanghais’ any more than 
did Dr. Bennett’s ‘ Wild East India Fawn-colored Dork- 
ings,’ at this same period notable. 
“Mr. Wright adds that Burnham failed to purchase this 
Cornish stock because he could not get it. Why not? I 
never tried to buy it. What did J want of it? I had the 
older stock, which I always deemed the best—to wit, the 
Gray Shanghais. Mr. Wright lays great stress on the fact 
that ‘ Burnham vainly tried to purchase this stock, but did 
not succeed.’ Admitted, again, that I did not. Thus, of 
course, Mr. Wright is a good witness that the fowls I had 
(presupposing that I ever had any) were not of this Cornish- 
Chamberlin, ‘ Chittagong,’ or ‘ Brahmapootra’ strain. This 
settles one point clearly. 
‘« But, I had better ones, and this it was that bothered my 
competitors, as thousands testified in favor of my birds, all 

over the world, in those years. I raised over 1600 of the 
‘Gray Shanghais’ in one year (1852 to 1853), in Melrose, 
and sent them all over Great Britain and the United States, 
to my generous patrons’ entire satisfaction, but never once 
calling them by the detested name of Brahmapootras, about 
which Mr. Wright has so unkindly (toward me), raised such 
a silly fuss. 
‘‘ All this, be it remembered, I now state, as applying in 
point of time to the period when Mr. Wright got out his 
books. Of course, in the last few years (since this ‘ Brahma’ 
name has been so universally in use), I have as often spoken 
of them as of my Gray Shanghais, because everybody latterly 
thus designates this kind of poultry, for convenience. And 
in my ‘ New Poultry Book,’ issued in 1871, I advertised and 
wrote about them as ‘ Brahmas,’ because we had all accepted 
this latest popularly established name—both in England and 
America—but not previously, when Wright published his 
works. 
‘“‘T am now sixty years of age. I solemnly declare that I 
never was concerned in making or in sustaining this name 
of ‘ Brahma’ for fowls. I never claimed it for my stock; I 
had no occasion to do so. I never (in those years) sold any 
fowls thus, for I knew when and where this name was made 
—by another party, for his own purposes—and I knew that 
my stock were not ‘ Brahmas,’ but true ‘Gray Shanghais.’ 
Under this latter name only, I always sent them to England, 
If other people choose to call them ‘ Black Spanish,’ I could 
not and cannot help it. 
‘‘ And to sum up, briefly, I will now say to Mr. Wright, 
you have entirely misapprehended this whole ‘ Brahma’ 
origin matter, so faras Iam concerned. You have assailed 
me and my fowls for no good reason under God’s heavens. 
I never had anything whatever to do with your ‘ Brahma’ 
fowls, about which you make such an ado! I never 
wished to; I never bred, bought, borrowed, kept, or had 
any ‘Brahmas,’ during the first twenty years of the poultry 
mania, from 1848 forward. Mr. Cornish does not say a 
word about me; and that gentleman and myself have never 
had any variance whatever, either written or verbal. In 
his letter he does not talk of Mr. Burnham or about 
‘Brahmas.’ He calls his fowls ‘ Chittagongs,’ then, as Dr. 
Kerr and Mr. Chamberlin did. Afterwards, they called 
them ‘ Brahmapootras,’ I believe, as they had the right to 
do, just as I had always called mine ‘Gray Shanghais,’ by 
the same right; as they (and Mr. Wright ought to) very 
well know. 
‘Dr. Bennett created this name of ‘ Brahma.’ Surely Mr. 
Lewis Wright, ‘thou canst not say I did it,’ and speak the 
truth! And once for all, I now inform you that I had no 
share in this ‘Brahmapootra’ or ‘ Brahma’ bubble, either 
as to fowls or by this name (except justly to ridicule it), 
from the beginning to the end; but constantly and always 
fought it ‘tooth and nail,’ as Cornish, Bennett, and every- 
body else knows; and simply claimed that I had, and (bred, 
kept, and sold), presented to the Queen, and exhibited, only 
my choice ‘ Gray Shanghais,’ the finest fowls in the world, 
which I imported from Shanghai, through Philadelphia 
(Dr. Kerr) and New York (W. T. Porter), in 1849 and 
1850. Will you correct these errors of yours, by publishing 
this article in your new London Fancrer’s GazerTe? I 
ask this at your hands as my just, legal, and moral right. 
You have the facts before you. Will you, MreLewis Wright, 
now accord me this simple justice ?”’ 
That I have not misintrepreted the main drift of the ar- 
ticle is proved by the fact that in sending a copy of it to the 
Journal of Horticulture of July 9th, Mr. Burnham writes as 
follows: , 
‘‘T inclose an article just published over my signature, 
correcting the strange errors committed by Mr. Lewis 
Wright, in his lately-published ‘ Illustrated Poultry Book,” 
connecting me with originating the name of the Brahma 
fowl, with which I never had anything to do, as you are 
probably aware.” 
And the American journal in which the article itself ap- 
pears fastens on the same contention as the evident gist of 
the paper. That much more than I have quoted—and I 
