FANCIERS’ JOURNAL AND POULTRY EXCHANGE. 
531 
are not fond of cage birds ; they are not pleasent to look 
upon, these poor little captives. An unhappy lark, singing 
in a close city street, is to us a pitiful object. Better far to 
see him singing as he soars aloft over the green fields, and 
a flock of pigeons “billing and cooing” on the roof of a 
good old-fashioned country farm-house. 
HALSTED v. LOCKWOOD. 
[We sincerely hope this conclusive argument will end the 
personal controversy appearing in our columns. We know 
that our readers as well as ourselves are thoroughly tired of 
it. The opposition to the A. P. A. has developed remarka- 
ble ability which can be employed in a more profitable di- 
rection by educating the younger members of the fancy. — 
Ed.] 
Friend Wade. 
I think it is South , who says, “ He who fights the devil 
at his own weapon must not wonder if he finds him an 
overmatch.” Therefore, I do not propose in my reply to 
Mr. Lockwood’s erudite and courteous (?) letter (in No. 28 
Fanciers’ Journal ), to indulge in any of those elegant ex- 
pressions which flow so smoothly from his tongue. 
Solomon says : “ Answer not a fool according to his folly, 
lest he be wise in his own conceit.” And Goethe says : “ Of 
all thieves, fools are the worst; they rob you of time and 
temper.” During the present heated term, I cannot make 
up my mind to work myself up to that bubbling, efferves- 
cent, gaseous pitch, which poor Mr. Lockwood must have 
arrived at, when he slopped over and penned the article 
above referred to. 
I sincerely hope his friends have taken him in hand, and 
by judicious applications of ice water and common sense 
(the latter in homoeopathic doses, for his head is too weak to 
stand much), have sufficiently revived him, so that he may 
be able to bear the slight corrections to which I feel it my 
duty to draw his attention. 
It is egotistical in me, I feel, to attempt to correct a genius 
of such rare attainments ; but, as Aristotle has it, “ There is 
no distinguished genius altogether exempt from some infusion 
of madness;” and now the dog-days are at hand, such mani- 
festations of “a weak intellect,” as Churchman has it, can- 
not be wondered at, but should receive the full meed of pity 
their very harmlessness entitles them to. 
Now, Mr. Editor, I would gladly forego the task of ex- 
posing poor Mr. Lockwood’s ignorance, but he leaves me no 
alternative. I said, in Journal of May 7 (No. 19), first 
page, “ In our report (of which I have the minutes), &e.” 
Well, I still have those minutes and probably Mr. Lockwood 
has got the “ report.” The minutes being in pencil, and 
the report made up therefrom, and written in ink. And in 
making up our report, we neither used nor referred to that 
bundle of errors known as “ Lockwood’s edition of the 
Standard ;” but, we used another edition, which does not de- 
scribe the plumage of the Black Spanish hen as “ black, 
with a reddish metallic lustre, &c. ” (as Mr. Lockwood’s 
edition does), and which I honestly believe to be free from 
all such egregious instances of stupidity and ignorance of 
poultry nomenclature, as are contained in the first-mentioned 
edition, and to which I referred as having been copied into 
the present “ new ” Standard. Therefore, the new Standard 
does not read “just as the Committee ordered it to read.” 
Now as to that other little “glaring error.” When I 
went to school my dictionary defined “ hardiness” as “the 
quality or state of being hardy; capability of endurance.” 
The word “ hardness," as “the quality or state of being 
hard, in any sense of the word; solidity.” But, perhaps 
Webster is too deep for Mr. Lockwood, so I will adapt 
the explanation to his capacity. If I say to him that 
he does not understand, owing to his hardiness, I could 
not of course expect him (or any one else) to see my 
meaning; but, if I say he does not understand, owing to 
his hardness (dulness of comprehension), I think that even 
he might catch some faint inkling of the meaning I intend 
to convey. 
The word used in the English edition, and also in both 
the editions edited by myself, is hardness, which is the cor- 
rect term. I cannot believe, however, that Mr. P. W. 
Hudson and his associates of the Game Committee, could 
have knowingly committed such a blunder. They are too 
well versed in the technical terms pertaining to that class, 
to be guilty of any such oversight. Neither can I take Mr. 
Lockwood’s word for it, that all these “glaring errors” 
were “just as the committees wrote them, and the Convention 
passed them.” It cannot be possible that this “most digni- 
fied body of men ’’ were so stupidly ignorant of all technical 
terms and points. No, no! It must be that the same gi- 
gantic intellect that revised the first Hartford edition of the 
Standard and prepared it for the press, also prepared the 
new Standard; hence the same lamentable ignorance of 
words and their meaning. 
It appears that Mr. Lockwood’s education is defective ; 
he appears to know no difference between “minutes” and 
“ reports,” or. between “ hardiness ” and “ hardness ;” so we 
must excuse his shortcomings, and censure only those mas- 
ter-minds, who conceived the grand idea of placing him 
again in the gap to cover their own ignorance. 
Alas, poor William! 1 fear that “whoever knows your 
literary life, will not let your article make a very heavy 
impression on them.” 
A. M. Halsted. 
P. S. — Will Mr. Lockwood inform me (courteously, if he 
can) by what stretch of imagination he told Mr. P. Wil- 
liams, last fall, that he (Lockwood) owned the copyright of 
the last edition of the Standard of Excellence? Of course 
Mr. Lockwood could not tell a ■, oh, no. 
P. P. S. — I nearly forgot to thank Mr. Lockwood for put- 
ting it upon record that I was Chairman of the Committee 
on Black Spanish; which fact Messrs. Churchman, Sweet 
& Co. have tried so hard to obliterate. 
[The above was in type previous to the meeting in N. Y. 
We have held it back hoping the difference would be settled 
between the parties. — E d.] 
jggp- Maine robins should have the palm for courage. A 
' Bangor cat having had the audacity to catch a pretty little 
■ fledgling, two brave robins alighted on her, and violently 
i picked her head and back, until she relinquished her prey. 
3 
A man in Pennsylvania has invented a rat-trap that 
f is made to operate upon the selfish passions of the poor rat 
1 and lure him into trouble. A mirror is set in the back part 
) of the device, beyond the bait, and as his ratship is out on a 
1 foraging expedition, he espies the bait; at the same time 
believes his own image in the mirror to be another rat 
l making for it on the opposite side. This is too much for 
e rat-nature to stand and be cool over, so he rushes for the 
’ bait and is caught. 
