THE BLUE DUN FOWL.

FOR an acquaintance with and a description of this very neat and pleasing variety, I am entirely indebted to the kindness of a valued correspondent, as also for good living specimens of the birds. "The Blue Dun Fowls were first procured by us from Dorsetshire, but I know not from what part. They are under the average size, and rather slenderly made, of a soft and pleasing bluish dun colour, the neck being darker, with high single combs, deeply serrated. The Cock is of the same colour as the Hen, but has in addition some handsome dark stripes in the long feathers of the tail, and sometimes a few golden or even scarlet marks on the wings, which, by their contrast, give the bird a very exotic look. The Blue Duns are exceedingly familiar, impudent, and pugnacious; indeed I strongly suspect this sort to be a variety of, or nearly related to, the Game Fowl, having exactly that shape, and also disposition.

"I have fortunately hit upon a lovely little Hen for you, but the Cock I must apologise for. His colour is unimpeachable, but you must imagine that little crest to be absent, and the comb to be single instead of double. His brother, who fully intended waiting on you in Norfolk, and was exceedingly perfect, was killed by a wire-guard being blown down on him. I would send my grown Cock, but I believe it would cause a mutiny among the labourers, who sometimes give him and his wife the greater part of their dinner, he being impudent enough to take it either from their hands or mouths! They have named him Fred.

It is the greatest fun to see a Cock of this

sort keeping up a playful fight with another, rather his superior, spinning and waltzing about him like a French dancing-master. Without more convincing proof, I do not quite approve of their being called Blue Bantams, as although the breed is certainly small, it is still respectable in size, and the eggs are very fair in that respect.

"The Hens are good layers, wanting to sit after laying a moderate number of eggs, and proving attentive and careful rearers of their own Chickens, but rather savage to those of other Hens. The eggs are small and short, tapering slightly at one end, and perfectly white. The Chicks, on just coming from the egg, sometimes have a ridiculous resemblance to the grey and yellow catkin of the willow, being of a soft bluish grey, mixed with a little yellow here and there.

"There is one peculiarity in this breed, which is, that if the variety is kept perfectly unmixed with any other sort, you will seldom obtain more than half the number of the proper Blue Duns, the rest being either black or white. (This would make us strongly suspect that if their history were known, they are themselves but a cross between two distinct varieties or species of Fowls, and that they must themselves eventually disappear, by assimilation to the type of one or other progenitor.) The white Chickens, however, are afterwards sprinkled with dun feathers. Perhaps the original sort may have been either black or white, as we know animals will, after many crossbreedings, cry back,' as it is called in some counties, to the origin whence they arose.

"The Blue Duns are nearly equal to game of any sort for eating. The hackles of the Cock are always in great request for making artificial flies for fishing."

—H. H.

A Cockerel of this breed had the comb large, single, deeply serrated; bill, dark horn-colour, white at the points of both mandibles; ear-lobe, whitish; wattles, large and pendant; iris, orange-brown; neck hackle, yellowish grey; back hackle, the same intermixed with black; legs, light

lead-colour; live weight, 3lb. 11oz.; general tint, bluish dun; claws, greyish white.

The theory that the colour of the Blue Dun results from a combination of white and black (i. e., very dark purple or slate-colour) in the progenitors, as betrayed by the habitual "crying back" of the breed, is confirmed by the fact of the speckled black and white, or grey and white, Spanish, producing whole-coloured slaty-grey birds, though of a darker hue than the Blue Duns, in which the permanency of the tint appears to be equally uncertain. It will be worth while to keep some of the aberrant Chickens of the Blue Duns, and record what is the result of their propagation inter se.

I am now much inclined to transfer these birds to the Game Fowls, and altogether abolish the "Blue Duns" as a distinct race, but await the consent of abler amateurs in Poultry. There are Blue Dun families belonging to several breeds we have them in the Spanish, the Polish, the Game and the Hamburghs, and it would be more correct to refer each Blue Dun to its own proper ancestry. It is a nice question, which there is not space to discuss here, how far colour is typical of certain species or subspecies; in some parts of a bird it never varies at all, but in the general plumage it varies considerably, under limitations; thus I never saw or heard of a brown or golden Spanish Fowl. Meanwhile, descriptions of one or two other Blue Duns will aid in attaining a clearer view. The first, a decided Game Fowl, cannot differ much from ours. "You say that your Blue Duns are perhaps the result of accidental crossing, whereas they have been known both in Yorkshire and Lancashire for many years, as a pure, unmixed, and distinct variety. They are also the most courageous and impetuous of the Game Fowls, seldom having been known to lose their first battle. Their plumage is, I think, the most beautiful of any of their species. The breast is of a rich dark slate-colour, the feathers having a broad margin of a darker hue, the saddle of a deep blood-colour, and the hackles of the neck

and tail of a dark red, gradually shading to a beautiful golden tint; the tail black and flowing, with a brilliant green shade. The Cock is thus a most gorgeous looking fellow, of a strong muscular frame, without offal; his legs are blue. The Hen is marked in the same manner, all over the back and body, with the hackle of the same golden colour. The Chicks, when first hatched are of a reddish brown, but with no particular distinctive markings: this I have only from hearsay, from the man who keeps them for us, and who has been a breeder of the variety for many years."—F. S. B.

There is also a Blue Dun which resembles the Hamburghs in every particular except in colour, and a disposition to sit, which makes them more useful to the farmer, who must, if he keep but one variety, have Fowls which will rear their own young, which none of the Hamburghs will do. Mr. Bissell says: "These are very fine noblelooking birds, and as useful as they are beautiful; and they have, to my knowledge, permanently bred without at all'crying back' or running out for some years."

THE LARK-CRESTED FOWL.

HERE again, as with the Cuckoo Fowl, is a breed that has been treated with undeserved disregard. Many London dealers might call them Polanders, and indeed many ill-bred Polands have crests inferior to some of these in size. But the shape of the crest, as well as the proportions of the bird, are different. Aldrovandi perceived the distinction. He calls the one "Our farmyard Hen, known to everybody, entirely white, and crested like a Lark: the other is his Paduan Fowl. The first, of whatever colour, is of a peculiar taper form, inclining forwards, as Aldrovandi's old-fashioned woodcut well represents, with a moderate, depressed, backward-directed crest, and deficient in the neatness of the legs and feet so conspicuous in the Polands; the latter are of more upright carriage and more squarely built frame. Set the two side by side, and their discrepancy will be apparent. I would distinguish the Lark-crested from the Polish Fowls, by the former having an occipital crest, the latter more of a frontal one. Mr. Selby's volume on Pigeons in the Naturalist's Library, gives a figure and description of the Columba dilopha or Doublecrested Pigeon, which has both these forms of top-knots united on its head.

Lark-crested Fowls are of various colours; pure snowwhite, brown with yellow hackle, and black. How far these sorts required to be subdivided, has not yet been investigated. The first of these are perhaps of a more brilliant white than is seen in any other domesticated