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FANCIER S’ JOURNAL AND POULTRY EXCHANGE. 
(For Fanciers’ Journal.) 
CROTCHETS OF THE POULTRY FANCY. 
By Peter Simple. 
No. 2. 
“ I have so great a contempt and detestation for meanness , that I could 
sooner make a friend of one who had committed murder, than of a man 
who could he capable, in any instance, of the former vice. Under mean- 
ness, I comprehend dishonesty; under dishonesty, ingratitude; under 
ingratitude, irreligion ; and under this latter, every species of vice and 
immorality in human nature.”— Laurence Sterne. 
In my opening contribution under the above broad title 
I spoke of the poultry “pedigree” crotchet. I shall avoid 
the mention of names of persons in these papers (except to 
credit quotations from writers), because I shall aim herein 
to treat the subject upon general principles merely. 
In my article “ Number One” of this series I alluded to 
one prominent American breeder, in the extract I made 
from “Burnham’s New Poultry Book,” necessarily, in 
making an accurate quotation from that work; but I did 
this only for the purpose of referring the reader to this type 
of breeders, who are constitutionally afflicted usually with 
waspish notions or “crotchets of the poultry fancy ” on the 
brain, and who cannot help it. But, once for all, I wish to 
say that no one must apply my remarks to himself, individu- 
ally ', unless he do so voluntarily. I am writing of a class, 
not of particular persons. 
“Hobbies,” maintains Bulwer, “should be wives, not 
mistresses. It does not answer to have more than one at a 
time. One hobby may lead us out of extravagance, but a 
team of hobbies we cannot well drive till we are rich enough 
to find corn for them all — and few men are rich enough for 
that! ” And the Rev. Mr. Alger appositely says, “ A fret- 
ful fancy is constantly flinging its possessor into gratuitous 
topliets.” 
Now I have in my mind at this moment a very good 
breeder (whom I cannot mention by name, because the editor 
of the Fanciers' Journal does not wish his correspondents to 
advertise any parties in this portion of his paper), who is a 
good representative of his class, and who possesses two of 
these hobbies, or crotchets, pre-eminently, which dual 
fancies (as an author I last week quoted from aptly puts it) 
this person is “running into the ground,” probably unwit- 
tingly. 
I will merely present his case, illustratively, as applicable 
to that of many others, who possibly may be just as innocent 
in their vagaries as I believe he is, but who are nevertheless 
upon the same track, and who will find, sooner or later, 
that he or they cannot drive this “double team ” always, 
because, metaphorically speaking, they are “ not rich enough 
to supply the corn for them.” 
This representative breeder I now picture is not properly 
a fancier, because of his indulgence in this sort of idiosyn- 
crasy, this persistent pursuit of his favorite ignis fatuus, and 
because he has limited himself for some years, we will as- 
sume, if not altogether from the outset, to the producing and 
reproducing of but one strain of a single variety of fowls. 
This variety is a “pea-comb bird, in the grain,” so he de- 
clares, for instance. 
He breeds no others from his stock ; never finds any other 
in his yards; they never come otherwise; they ought never 
to come differently ; they won’t breed diversely from this; 
the original stock they descend from breed thus ; this pecu- 
liar characteristic of the pea-comb (or “ white earlobe,” if 
you prefer to substitute that feature) is innate, certain, uni- 
form, positive, unalterable (in his stock), it has always been 
thus ; and chickens sold by him may be relied on to breed 
the pea-comb invariably, as, say the true Cornish-Cham- 
berlin, Light Brahmas, for example, have done from time 
immemorial in their history. This is hobby first with this 
breeder, and he appears, on paper at least, religiously to 
believe in all this, and will swear to it almost every time in 
his enthusiasm. 
But these typical breeders’ other hobby, for they have two 
of these crotchets well developed in their fancy latterly, is 
that of the “pedigree” nuisance for poultry. He can tell 
you (this enterprising kind of fancier) where and whence 
the sire and dam of every bird he sells originated ; who their 
grandfather and grandmother were ; whence the great- 
grandfather and great-grandmother came ; and so back to 
the great-great, on both sides; and, ante-f7ie.se, the great- 
great-great, &c., &c., and so on — away back to the Cornish- 
Chamberlin, Bennett, Plaisted, Burnham cock-a-doodie-doo 
of 1849, ’46, or ’47, that came from Luckipoor, in India, 
possibly in the hands of the sailor who found the original 
pair of Grays in New York or elsewhere, and sent them to 
Connecticut in some of these above-named years by “one 
Mr. Knox,” who lately turned up in Connecticut, alive and 
frisky, after having been dead full twenty years, according 
to Mr. Cornish. 
Now such a “ pedigree,” so “ clear and explicit, and un- 
deniable,” is a big thing in the estimation of the class of 
breeders of whom I merely sketch a type. The particular 
strain of stock this party may breed we will call, for con- 
venience sake, the genuine Chamberlin-Brahmapootras, or 
Light Brahmas, as I think he would style them. And he 
has the pedigree of all his numerous birds set down in form, 
no doubt most accurately, within the last three months, if 
you please, in a “ certain publication.” (I do not name the 
paper, because I am forbidden to advertise any party in 
these contributions.) 
I have thus aimed to define such a breeder’s position, just 
as he and his associates in this moonshine have or would put 
it before the public. I repeat it, such men raise good fowls, 
possibly. They may be the possessors of an excellent strain 
of stock. They have been singularly fortunate, indeed, in 
their success in this regard, if their statements be true. 
And they “stand alone in their glory” upon this question 
of the “ pea-comb ” and the “ pedigree,” since their stock 
transmits the peculiar characteristics of the Cornish-Cham- 
berlin birds thus infallibly, when no other man in America 
or England, from Virgil Cornish, in 1849, down to C. C. 
Plaisted, in 1874 (who latterly claims to be “the oldest 
breeder of this pure Chamberlin stock in the U nited States ”), 
has ever yet enjoyed this extraordinary good fortune in 
breeding : vide the elegant extracts, with day and date be- 
hind them, upon these two “crotchets” hereunto annexed, 
from the published records. 
The Pedigree Dodge. 
“ Mr. Chamberlin brought Yns first pair of these Gray fowls 
into Connecticut in the early part of the year 1849. This is 
certain.” — ( Virgil Cornish’s original account, given March 2d, 
1852.) 
“ The owner of the fowls was named Nelson H. Chamber- 
lin. I bought his first brood, hatched in 1847. The ship 
arrived at New York with them in September, 1846.” — 
( Virgil Cornish’s second account, written “ to order,” Novem- 
ber 97/t, 1869.) 
