FANCIER S’ JOURNAL AND POULTRY EXCHANGE. 
597 
take to be an error, as a course of this kind would throw 
out many of the best shaped and most valuable birds bred. 
I do not know that my theory is indorsed, or will be in- 
dorsed, by the older breeders of Leghorns, but I do know that 
the principle is sound, and I believe firmly that in the end 
we must come down to plain merit first, and fancy points 
afterwards, and particularly those which are not a charac- 
teristic. 
Beauty and use need not conflict, but if they do conflict, 
the average poultryman will take use and profit first, and 
good looks as a secondary consideration ; and, for this very 
reason, he will select among his Leghorns those having the 
best shape, proper color, largest size, and most hardy and 
vigorous constitution. 
Just as I write the closing lines, the letter of J. Boardman 
Smith, in September number of Poultry World, catches my 
attention. I desire to thank him, as one of the representa- 
tive breeders of Leghorns, for taking a firm stand against 
this five-point novelty. I believe with him that it is much 
more important that the comb should be nicely and evenly 
serrated, than that it should have five or any other specified 
number of points ; and here let me remark, that the smaller 
the number of points of the comb, the more irregular in gen- 
eral will be the serrations, and the more ungainly and uncouth 
the comb. 
Will the revising committee on the new standard heed 
this? A. 1ST. Ratjb, 
Lock Haven, Pa. 
EFFECT OF LIGHT ON BREEDING STOCK. 
When Mr. Wright went so far as to assert, in his last 
great work, that the mere presence of a black hen among 
white ones might cause spotted chicks, I believed him ; but 
when some fanciers wrote articles claiming that all breeds 
might be allowed to run together indiscriminately, and a 
separation of a few weeks.be depended on to insure purity 
of offspring, I remembered the first maxim in logic, Contra 
facta non licet argumentare , and resolved to test the matter 
by facts. I took a White Leghorn hen, mated with a White 
Leghorn cock, and preserved her eggs. After she had 
stopped laying four days, I mated her with a Light Brahma 
cock. Another White Leghorn hen I treated similarly, 
using a hawk-colored or Dominique rooster instead of a 
large Asiatic. I allowed the hens to remain one week with 
these cocks, when they were returned to their former mate. 
Every chick hatched from eggs laid before this mating was 
a pure White Leghorn. Chicks hatched from eggs laid by 
the hen which had been mated with the Brahma were 
feathered on the legs. Unfortunately, this hen died soon 
after; but the other one I kept for a year, and then sold, 
explaining to the purchaser the facts. She remained all 
this time, except the one week, with the cock of her own 
breed; and still, from eggs laid by her eleven months after 
this week of mating, I hatched speckled chicks in the pro- 
portion of five out of every twelve. 
The theories of those who combat the natural deductions 
from these facts, at least as far as White Leghorns are con- 
cerned, are, to my mind, on a par with the ratiocinations of 
the Academy, explaining the reason why water will not over- 
flow from a completely full bowl if a fish be gently placed 
in it, which were indulged in until a member, to illustrate 
his logic, trying the experiment, found the assertion false. 
I received, on the 17th of this month, a letter stating that 
the legs of young from White Leghorns known to be pure 
were feathered, and asking if it could possibly be occasioned 
by their having run with Light Brahmas last fall. I un- 
hesitatingly answered, yes. 
One other test I have made. Complaints of colored chicks 
from eggs, White Leghorns, sold by me, reached me several 
times before the issue of that number of Mr. Wright’s work 
to which I have referred. After its perusal, I attributed 
the colored chicks to the presence of Houdans in the next 
corral, my hens being at that time separated by lattice-work 
to within a foot of the ground. The experiment I now 
mention has led me to board them up to the height of three 
feet. I doubted if the mere sight of a colored fowl would 
be sufficient to produce such effect under peculiar circum- 
stances; hence, I placed a pair of White Leghorns in one 
pen and a vigorous Houdan cock in the next pen, in full 
sight of each other. Every time the White Leghorn cock 
performed his marital functions, the Houdan rushed with 
much noise against the partition, and immediately thereafter 
the two would fight. The chicks produced from eggs laid 
while this situation remained were colored, and one actually 
had the crest of a Houdan. The same hen, placed in another 
corral, produced chicks showing no trace of anything but 
pure Leghorn ; so the effects did not remain as in the case 
where one was mated with a colored cock. Call it, with 
Mr. Wright, acting on the imagination of the hen, or ex- 
plain it in any other way, the fact remains, at least as far 
as this individual hen is concerned ; and 1 am led to believe 
that many so-called “ sports ” may be produced by like 
causes. — M. Eyre , Jr., ( Poultry Bulletin.) 
Mr. W. J. Pyle. 
Dear Sir: I will send you to-morrow nine eggs, three 
from each of three hens, all numbered. I wish you to ex- 
amine them and tell me which will hatch and which will 
not, and give me the numbers ; then set them and see how 
they turn out. I will pay charges to New York ; I would 
pay through but cannot further than New York. 
J. Y. Bicknell, 
Westmoreland, N. Y., Aug. 4, 1874. 
THE ORIGIN OF BRAHMAS. 
TI. — AN “ ONPLEASANT DIFFERENCE.” 
Being anxious to render Mr. Burnham what he demanded 
as simple justice, I quoted last week a considerable portion 
of his article, in which he vigorously assails me on the pro- 
fessed ground that I had charged him with originating the 
name of Brahmas, and with claiming to have originated the 
fowls. There was neither space nor time for anything in 
reply; and before proceeding to this I must show, very 
briefly, why I feel compelled to deal with his present state- 
ments in the way I shall do. 
The article from which I quoted so fully is not in a bad 
spirit; nay, it contains in other paragraphs expressions al- 
most complimentary to me, which it is needless to quote, and 
adds, “Now, I consider Mr. Wright a good writer, and no 
doubt he is an honorable man ; I never have, and never 
shall fling mud at him.” This appeared, be it remembered, 
in the American Fancier’s Journal of June 11th, after pe- 
rusing a long extract in a previous number containing what 
I had said about him and his fowls in “ The Illustrated Book 
of Poultry ; ” but on the very same day Mr. Burnham ad- 
dressed to me a letter, which he discreetly marked “ private,” 
