iimffims3Sisical specimen of the breed. During this correspondence Mr. Wright addressed us as a lady, and when we observed on this and told him we desired to preserve our incog. ; he replied that " our identity had from \h.e first been a matter of common knowledge" therefore Mr. Wright's statement in his recent publication " that it was not known till years after- wards that 'a great part of these effusions were written by a lady," is, to say the least of it, an evidence of great oblivion on his part. We would remark in passing that the passage quoted by Mr. Wright was not from Miss Croad's pen, but it was amply justified by what was taking place. As far as we were concerned, we never attacked breeder or breed, our time was fully occupied in lifting off approbrious epithets, and false charges from the Langshan. We are aware that Mr. Gedney, in replying to the abuse, with which the Langshan classes at the Crystal Palace Show in 1876 were bespattered, had pointed out the fact, that it was not in good taste for Cochin breeders to enter our classes, and take theprizes^ with their mongrels that had been given by Langshan breeders for pure bred Langshans. But surely this was a very mild form of administering a most just rebuke. Black Cochin breeders at that time behaved like a party of wild schoolboys. Their action in this matter has long since been forgiven, and it is much to be regretted that these old grievances should be again raked up. We would point out to our readers, that their revival is no work of ours, but since they have been in.sidiously brought forward as charges against us, we insist on the exact truth being made apparent. Mr. Wright's " popular " edition was very much on the old lines, except that he divided the heading of his chapter between the Cochin and the Langshan thus, "Black Cochins — Langshans," 12 THE LANGSHAN FOWL. Throughout it was an effort to prove that the Langshan was the original of the Cochin, the raw material from which Cochin breeders had manipulated their present stock. He disposes of all our arguments in favour of distinction and purity of race as follows : — "All this was sheer nonsense, and the real truth is clear enough to any who are willing to see it, and are at all competent to judge of the evidence in such a question. The peculiar points of longer (average) legs, and deeper (average) breast, were points of the early Cochins, before being bred to the present standard. More than this, in an early American poultry book of 1852 (Miner's) there is a positive plethora of large black Asiatic fowls — Black Javas, Black Chinas, IIong-Kongs, and Hoanghos. All were more or less black, with coloured hackle ; all had a tendency to scanty feather, or were occasionally bare-legged ; all were spoken highly of for meat and eggs, but all were recognised as belonging to the one great Chinese or Shanghai race. As the area of China proper comprises more than one-twelfth of the entire land surface of the, globe, this is truly giving a wide range to the one great Chinese or Shanghai race, especially when it is borne in mind that the climate of China varies from winters of the bitterest cold to regions warmed by the perpetual heat of a tropical sun. Mr. Wright treats China and Shanghai much as he does his chapter " Black Cochins — Langshans ; " one is left in doubt as to whether he believes China to be the capital of Shanghai— certainly no one would divinethat the latter was merely a treaty port in one of the smaller provinces of that vast empire. Mr. Wright goes on to say, " that some of these Black Chinas, Hong-Kongs, etc., were undoubtedly representative of the Lang- shan." This we think highly probable — individual birds may have been brought down from the Langshan district to Shanghai, and thence to England. In 1880 Mr. Gabb told us that a sailor in his neighbourhood had some thirty years previously brought some birds from China, that he felt sure had been crossed with Langshans, but they were not pure. Mr. Wright goes on to say : — " Not one single point has ever yet been mentioned by anybody which gives one c^stinption that can be recognised by a naturalist in a question of this kind, or appre- ciated by a judge in the show pen. The black leg is the natural colour for black fowls, and was only avoided by the Cochin breeders with difficulty, through the close THE LA'NGSHAN FOWL. 1 3 selection required ; it is now adopted by Cochin breeders very wisely. The white skin always goes with black plumage and legs. All the other points are relative, and we satisfied ourselves by careful scrutiny that ' Langshans' from the most pretentious sources were shown with all length of tail and leg, and with as little breast and as much fluflF as the Cochin, from which the much-abused Poultry judges were never- theless expected to distinguish them." We do not care to enquire who were meant by the most pre- tentious sources, we content ourselves by saying the description given does not answer to any Langshan that ever emanated from our yard, either as bird or egg. We do not say that our birds have always been sufficiently fatted for the requirements of the show pen, (not even in our own estimation), but they have always had the long deep breast inherent to the Langshan, and careful feeding could have obtained a large amount of breast- meat. Mr. Wright adds : — "Another crucial point in deciding the matter of race distinction is, that when the birds were used as ' crosses ' by Cochin breeders, there was no sign of a cross, the stock simply amalgamated at once. To any competent naturalist this fact alone is conclusive. " This is, perhaps, about the most startling of the many erroneous statements made by Mr. Wright. The Langshan, when "used as a cross by Cochin breeders, showed itself quite as clearly as it does in the Orpington and Black Java of the present day. We are aware that Mr. Wright, in a foot-note to his later edition has stated that : — " Miss Croad has written, maintaining that the Langshan was probably the proge- nitor of the Black Java fowl, which has a strange resemblance in some points to it, It is manifest this cannot be, since it is well ascertained that races spread rather from India to China, and Black Javas were well known in the United States in 1850, and undoubtedly came from somewhere near the locality named, and not from North China at all." Mr. Wright shows himself singularly ill-informed on all subjects connected with the Langshan. We do not dispute that racfes spread from India to China, rather than from China to India, but Mr. Wright seems not to be aware of the fact that the Java is a made bird and that it does not hail from Java or any of the Islands of the Indian Ocean, at any rate in its present form. We have been in close correspondence on poultry subjects with 14 THE LANGSHAN FOWL. America for some years. Poultry journals from all parts of the United States, Canada, and California have been sent us and all agree in giving the following account of the Black Java. A Doctor D. was some years ago in possession of a breed of fowls from which he would not part with either bird or egg for love or money, bat that gentleman's coachman not being so conservative possessed himself of two of the eggs, and gave them to the uncle of some brothers named Lattin ; from these two eggs the Black Java is said to have originated. But besides the papers we have other testimony. It is the habit of American poultry breeders to send out catalogues giving illustrations of the various breeds kept by them, a short history accompanying each illustration. In these we have always found the Black Java described as a made breed, three breeds being said to have been used in its composition, two of these are mentioned by name (if we remember rightly) the (juelder fowl, and the Black Dominique. Number three has always been left a mystery. We heard several Langshan breeders remark on the very pretty little Java exhibited at the Dairy Show last year (1888), and one and all gave it as their opinion that the Langshan had without doubt, contributed the mysterious number three. This fact does not in the least militate from the Java, for what- ever breed, it is associated with the Langshan improves and beautifies In his work Mr. Wright speaks of the " fog of the dispute." We can truly say this "fog" was neither created by the Langshan nor by its admirers, the pathway of the Langshan has from the first been as clear as that of the sun at noonday. No true lover of the breed has ever sought to cast a shadow over it, but notwithstanding Mr. Wright's " fog," he plumes himself on having discovered a type for the breed. In order to do full justice to the discoverer, we give his own words. " Singularly enough we ourselves were in all probability the destined instrument for selecting irom the miscellaneous crowd, a type which now seem likely to pre-' dominate." (Namely the two birds doing duty for Langshans as his frontispiece). We now come to Mr. Wright's latest work, in which he THE LANGSHAN FOWL,^ IS favours the Langshan with a separate chapter. We would here state that had Mr. Wright in this work given a true and reliable account of the breed itself we should have been content to leave to him the task of writing its " last chronicles ; " but, although Mr. Wright in his new work allows the Langshan a foremost place amongst our breeds of Poultry, and speaks in the highest terms of its merits, he has arrived at false conclusions and put forth most erroneous and misleading statements ; and, whilst we find it our duty to make this apparent, we shall take the opportunity to free those who have advocated the cause of the Langshan from the odious and contemptible position in which Mr. Wright has sought to place them. Mr. Wright says : — ' " The late Major Croad exhibited his Langshans at the Crystal Palace in 1S72, in the class for ' any other new or distinct variety.' In reply to a request for opinions upon them, all the poultry authorities of the day gave it unanimously as formed upon the fowls in the show pen, that they were practically identical with Black Cochins, and in deference to that opinion the fowls were entered as Black Cochins at the following Crystal Palace Show, in 1873." Now this is a most garbled statement of what really took place. Mr. J. W. Nicholls was the only " authority " with whom our uncle held correspondence in this matter, and he told him, from his description, he believed Major Croad to be in possession of a breed of fowls entirely new to this country. After the birds were sent up, we wrote again to beg that the " authorities " would let us know what had been thought of them, whether they had ever appe,ared in England before, etc. To this letter we have to this day received no reply. The account given by Major Croad of his birds was a minute and faithful one. We repeat it. The old birds were in full moult ; one of the cocks was of the tall up-standing type, the other of what has been since called the Dorking type, with full tail, we cannot remember however in what condition it appeared. ' Two of the hens had fine erect combs, were large birds, and symmetrical in shape, the other two hens had slight tufts, these tufts we believe to have been mere "sports." One thing we l6 THE LANGSHAN FOWL. however proved, we did not obtain any tufted chicken from the erect combed hens, but from the tufted we did. ' This agrees with the testimony regarding "Sports" given by Darwin andothers,for it is well-known that most varieties of poultry were originally derived from " sports." We were always on the look out for any information that would add to our store of knowledge, and an extract from the Editor's Drawer of " Live Stock Journar' gave us some light on the subject. A Mr. J. M. Mandeville asks about tufts in Embden Geese, Mr. Wright replies, " They have not usually tufts, but this Accidental variation is found in almost all the feathered family." In confirmation of this two or three of the ducks in two importations of " Pekins " gave tufted ducklings. We handed them on to a friend, but as he was obliged to give up his poultry yard just after, we cannot say whether like produced like. The young birds we sent to the 1872 show brought away no prize, but they were highly commended, and we also thought that their appearance originated the Black Cochin class at the Crystal Palace in 1873. As before stated our earnest appeal for information as to what had been thought of our birds had remained unnoticed. We only heard incidentally during the course of the following summer that they had been called ' Black Cochins," and we think a Crystal Palace Schedule must have been sent us. " There is nothing new under the sun,'' and it seemed probable that Langshans had already appeared in England, and had been called by this name ; so nothing doubting, we entered some young birds for competition ; unfortunately we were not able to be present at either of these Shows, but the remarks made on our " entries " convinced us that the Langshan would have to be entirely re-made, in order to fit in to the then Black Cochin standard ; but the Crystal Palace were not the only " authorities " to which our birds were submitted at that time. They won first at a Local Show, in the presence of a few ardent fanciers, and our man who took them to the Show could have sold several sittings of eggs had he been authorized to do so. The THE LANGSHAN FOWL. 17 Secretary in sending his prize money congratulated Major Croiad on the " new and beautiful " breed in his possession. They were subsequently sent to another Local Show where they were en- tirely ignored. Our man met the judge who had awarded them " first" at Pulborough who remarked to him "They have made a grand mistake about your birds, they are the finest in the Show, and are certainly not what they have called them." The man could not remember the name but doubtless it was " Black Cochin." We also exhibited some young birds at a show held at Lewes that year (1872), and one of the Lady Patronesses was so struck with their beauty, that she asked us to supply her with eggs for sitting. During the following summer we were told, this lady had become disgusted with her Langshans, from having heard they were inferior Black Cochins, and ought to have had yellow legs. Years afterwards we discovered that our informant had been misled in this matter, for the lady wrote to us for a cockerel in 1879, when she told us she still retained the beautiful Langshans she had raised from the eggs purchased of Major Croad, and that having had to reduce her yard she had " done away with all other breeds in their favour." It was at the instigation of a naval friend, who was himself a poultry fancier, and had passed some time of active service in China, that Major Croad exhibited his first Langshans at the Crystal Palace. He told us he was sure they were a new and distinct breed, and when he heard that it had been suggested that they were Cochins, he said he felt quite certain that this had been an " egregious blunder." We think we have made it clear why we entered our birds in the Black Cochin class in 1873 ; it was because we were absolutely ignorant of poultry matters, and poultry shows, and had allowed ourselves to be guided by those whom we supposed to be well- informed on the subject. We are far from saying that the " authorities " were not deceiving themselves, but if they confounded the Langshan with the Black Cochin, it was because " their eyes were holden that they could not see." We would here C 1? THE LANGSHAN FOWL. remind our readers of the account given of the earlier Black Cochins in the article quoted from the " Queen" of 1862. Mr. Wright speaks of Mr. R. Fletcher Houseman, as having given some colour to this Cochin theory in connection with the Lang- shah that that gentleman had written " that some of the chicken he had received from our eggs, had turned out the very type of Cochins." In a communication we had from Mr, Houseman on this subject, he told us that Mr. Wright had derived an entirely wrong impression from his remarks, that he had no desire to convey the idea that he had discovered the remotest Cochin element in any one of our birds ; he merely meant that some of the birds leant more to the Cochin type or shape, as others do to the Dorking, Hamburgh etc. This is merely the evidence of a breed untampered with and not subject to severe selection ; the Lang- shan is a very original breed and the more that is seen of it the more will this be proved. By this we desire to convey that all the circumstances, relating to the Langshan, point to the fact that it is one of the original breeds, hence the supposed types dis- covered, all of which are without doubt within the range of its own purity. When, in 1 886, Mr. Hamilton wrote of the antiquity of the Langshan this fact had been forced upon him by what he had observed in the breed. Mr. Wright says " Miss Croad in the Langshan controversy professed to dispose of the black leg and white skin theory, by referring to the Spanish fowl, whereas it is notorious that this fowl has a white skin!' In the remark we made we were not referring the colour of the skin at all, what we said was " the black plumage of the Spanish does not convert it into a good table fowl." We freely acknowledge we here spoke of the table properties of the Spanish fowl from mere hearsay; if it is a good table fowl, we are open to correction, Mr. Wright continues : — " Finally it was urged with considerable bitterness that the Langshan gloss or " sheen " was sui generis, and when Mr. Ludlow made the remark that it was sur- passed by the Black Hamburghs and Black Malays, Miss Croad replied, ' that those who know anything of the breeds here mentioned will at once see how utterly false are Mr. Ludlow's statements.' All experienced breeders know very well that in any TH)E LANGSHAN FOWL. 19 black fowl the amount of gloss really depends chiefly upon the time of year — the condition and tightness of plumage." Surely " the condition," " time of year,'' tightness of plumage," should have been considered in judging of the Langshan, as well as the Black Hamburgh and Malay ! Mr. Wright is an ungenerous critic both as regards his friends, and those- to whom he is opposed, but since he has chosen to revive this controversy, we feel bound to state how Mr. Ludlow canie to be writing abotit the Langshans at that time. In June, 1879, Mr. Ludlow asked us to lend him a pair of birds to lithograph for an American paper and in doing this he told us he was curious to see some specimens of the breed over which there had been so much dispute. We lent him the birds which were promptly returned. To our surprise we subsequently found that Mr. Ludlow had not only engaged to make the lithograph but to write notes on the breed. We would here remark that this controversy, was neither provoked or commenced by us. The earlier portions of it were penned by one who opened his subject by stating, that he knew very little about the Cochins, and nothing at all about the Langshan, and therefore thought himself qualified to descant on both breeds. As his remarks throughout were an insidious attack on the Langshan we felt called upon to take up arms in its defence. The American paper had reproduced these earlier portions of the " Controversy " and instead of admitting our defence had entertained Mr. Ludlow's notes in their place. Mr. Ludlow had in a page previous to his invidious comparison of the Langshan with the Black Hamburgh told his readers that the early Cochins, were " birds whose necks and legs were points to elicit derisive laughter!' He said these early Cochins were exactly like the Langshan, and in order to empha- size his remarks, had added " in fact if there's any difference, shure they are just alike." Those acquainted with the Langshan, will understand that this did not incline us to accept Mr. Ludlow's testimony with regard to other breeds. Our impression at the time was that Mr. 20 THE LANGSHAN FOWL. Ludlow had stjung these notes together from a good-natured (desire to oblige his friends. They did the Langshan no harm. Years have passed since their publication, and Mr. Ludlow may probably be better informed on what the Langshan really is. We greatly regret to have to revert to them and thus keep up this perpetual strife ! Mr. Wright says : — " At the Crystal Palace Show of 1876 the Langshans (in separate classes) and Cochins were placed side by side, and Miss Croad herself states (Fowls, August 9th, 1888), ' that many of the former bore so strong a resemblance to the latter that I was absolutely startled.' This was admittedly owing largely to the infusion of new blood ; there was no disguise about that ; but there was no excuse for the wholesale charges of ' cheating and fraud ' brought in consequence against many breeders. " The case of the Weymouth Cup bird adduced by Mr. Wright in confirmation of this is singularly infelicitious, but more of this anon. Mr. Wright, too, had evidently noticed what startled us, only this happened to be the first poultry show we had ever visited and Mr. Wright had come to the state of things by degrees. In 1873 our birds were disqualified because of their dark legs. At this show we found that most of the entries in the Black Cochin classes had assumed the dark legs of the Langshan, and Mr. Wright actually pointed out in his report of the Langshan classes that : — " The second prize winner in one class had duplicates in the Black Cochin classes, the exhibitor having simply selected a cockerel rather tall and full in tail, though not so full as we have seen Cochins win with." He goes on : — " But Mr. Croad's two pens astonished us most. We thought it had been laid down that Langshans were high on legs and scantily feathered, but one of Mr. Croad's Cockerels was the shortest le^ed and dumpiest Cochin in all the Black classes, and hocked as was the Pullet in the other pen, the mate of each being barely feathered, they were also the brownest and least lustrous." We parted with a pair of our Crystal Palace birds immediately after their appearance at that Show, to Mr. Frank Nunn, who won first and second with them at five or six consecutive Shows THE LANGSHAN FOWL. ?I — beginning at Cambridge and ending at the Aquarium. When we saw them at the latter place in the following February they were remarkably fine, and absolutely luminous with sheefi. When this was pointed out to Mr. Wright in 1884, he gave an extract from a letter of ours that appeared in '^ Live Stock Journal" on October 20th, 1876, the same letter from which we have quoted portions of Mr. Wright's foot-note. From ours he quotes, " not until December or January (Cambridge was at the end of December) can the Langshan be seen at its best."- As surely as " the boy is father to the man " so surely does a young bird to some extent prognosticate its future. No doubt time brings changes, and often disappointments, but this would not excuse Mr. Wright's cruel and sweeping condemnation. We would here remark that Mr. Frank Nunn never actually joined the Langshan Club. We are not responsible for any threats he may have used toward Mr. Wright, but we must say that gentleman's treatment of the Langshan and its advocates was only too well calculated to call forth bitter and hasty expressions. Mr. Wright says, " the use Cochin breeders made of the Langshan by crossing with it, ' for the infusion of new blood,' was no excuse for the wholesale charges of cheating and fraud brought in consequence against many breeders." He forgets that Cochin , breeders after using our bird had told us that the Langshan was the " Pariah " of the Black Cochin, " a weed from the Black Cochin breeder's yard." He continues, " one specimen may be given of a great deal that went on. A pen of fowls won as Langshans at Weymouth in 1877, and were bought by Mr. Leys ; and a few months later were ' disqualified ' as Cochins, not merely ' passed,' but the card attached, and this reason given. This alone would not prove very much ; for judges are inconsistent enough at times. But after the Weymouth Show Miss "Croad published a letter complaining (on purely hearsay fcvidence) that her birds were ' robbed ' of the cup and that the winners had ' yellow legs.' " '• M. Lieys however, happened to be a believer in the Langshan and bred Cothins 22 THE LANGSHAN FOWL. also ; and he stated that these birds were different altogether, and that, moreover, he had other birds hatched from " Mr. " Croad's own eggs, and that the two were alike and all black legged. Moreover, he had chickens from them, and they were utterly " unlike Cochins," and had all the Langshan points as he understood them." After the formation of the Langshan Club, in 1877, the first, Show to solicit a cup was " the Weymouth." One of the Committee wrote asking if we coilld procure a cup, if he got up two classes for Langshans. He said he thought he had met with specimens of the breed in China, and would like to see them represented at their Show. We succeeded in procuring the cup, when it was discovered that there would be a paucity of entries ; and at the suggestion of our "committeeman" we wrote off immediately to all Langshan breeders of our acquaintance, but without success, it was too early in the season ! We were then asked to send what birds we could from our own yard, this we did. At this stage of the proceedings, when we discovered the entries were likely to be so few, it would have been decidedly right to have withdrawn the Cup altogether, but we were entirely new to office, and the idea of drawine; back never occurred to us. After the birds were staged the committeeman commenced a letter to us saying " your Cockerel is safe for the Cup,'' he concluded it with, " I am sorry to say th^ Cup has been given to a bird that was purchased by a lady in this neighbourhood as a Black Cochin, and has yellow in its legs." Two days afterwards we received a letter from a member of the Langshan Club, who in passing through Weymouth had visited the Show. He wrote, " Iwas disgusted to find that our Cup has gone to a half bred Cochin with yellow legs," he added that whilst he was standing near the Langshan classes, he noticed a person holding forth on the breed and he distinctly heard him declare that the Langshan was only the " waste of the Black Cochin." He afterwards saw this individual feeding a Brahma in another part of the Show ; on referring to his catalogue he dis- covered this gentleman was a noted Black Cochin breeder, and that he had entered birds to compete for our Cup. To quote Mr. Wright " this was only a specimen of a great deal that was going on." THE LANGSHAM fowl. 23 Mr. Wright seems to have missed the real pith of M. Leys argument which was that the birds purchased as Black Cochins were not Cochins at all but Langshans. A short time after this Show M. Leys wrote to ask if he might become a member of the Langshan Club, we replied that if he could guarantee the purity of his birds, he would be certainly eligible to join but we at the same time pointed out, that the Langshan Club had been instituted to keep the breed pure. On this M. Leys very frankly gave us the whole history of his birds ; he said "A lady in his neighbourhood had purchased the parents as Black Cochins of a Cochin breeder, but she found them quite unlike any other Cochins she had ever seen. She showed them to M. Leys who agreed with her, and advised her to exhibit them in the Langshan classes at Weymouth. M. Leys we know was' thoroughly convinced that these birds were Langshans, and he told us he could see but little difference, between them, and ours." Langshan breeders well know how the Langshan stamps itself on its progeny in a cross, the member of the Langshan Club, and the Committeeman who had had our birds in his keeping, would see traces of Cochins that would not have struck M. Leys. This gentleman in a letter to us about this time, speaking of his Cup Cockerel says, " if my bird is a Cochin I am a Dutchman," but there is little doubt that there was too much Langshan in him for Mr. to keep." But we had not done with the Weymouth Cup bird yet. In the autumn we received a letter from a gentleman complaining ; he said " you have told us the Langshan is a pure and distinct breed, and not allied to the Cochin, I can prove that you are mistaken, I purchased eggs advertised from the Cockerel that won your Club Cup at Weymouth, and they have produced white and speckled Cochins," We think we have adduced pretty clear evidence, that the Langshan was not absorbed by the Cochin ; that when used as a cross, it did not "simply, amalgamate," but visibly declared itself. There were many reasons why we could not have retained this ?4 THE LANGSHAN FOWL. Cup, had it been awarded tp our birds ; it was the first Cyp given by the Langshan Club, it had been given at our instigation, we were the only Club member competing for it, and as it afterwards transpired, the only Langshaii breeder also. We considered ourselves in a measure, the guardian of the purity of the breed, and our protest was made from the highest sense of duty, and not because we coveted the Cup ; we thought at the time, that M. Leys honestly believed what he said, and we are still of that opinion although we have proved without a doubt that he was mistaken, Mr. Wright continues : — " We must now pass to the more recent history of these fowls. It will occur to many readers that a strain must have some exceedingly good qualities to ultimatelji live down such a suicidal policy as we have briefly elucidated. Such the Langshan certainly has, and we now have to chronicle how the fowl gradually established its position. We believe that after all we ourselves were the destined instruments in working out this end. All the while the question of distinctness was being discussed, we were on the look out to find something distinctive if we could, and in the years 1877, and 1878, we noticed pens of Langshans shown at Birmingham by Mr, J, Thomson, of Aberdsen, which seemed to us really to exhibit a type widely different from that of the Cochin,- and more significant to us — to show the same type in all the pens." Now as we arranged for the classes at Birmingham from 1877 to 1884, we are in a position to state that Mr, Thomson did not exhibit in England in 1877 ; he sent a single bird at our earnest request to the Bath and West of England Show in 1 878, We give a quotation from a letter of his dated June 21st, by which it will be seen that Mr. Thomson's birds had not yet found favour in Mr, Wright's eyes. He writes, " I note with pleasure that you and I have divided the highest honours at Oxford, The ' Live Stock Journal' must as usual have its sneer, but the editor may some day see his mistake," At the Dairy Show in 1878 we got up four classes containing valuable prizes for Langshans, the classes numbered 59 entries. Birds that mustered in such force and, we can add, could show such beautiful specimens, could not long fail of recognition. At this Show Mr, Thomson exhibited a single bird which won the cup in its class, and it was afterurards passed over at the Crystal THE LANGSHAN FOWL. 2$ Palace on account of a crooked breast. To all appearance it was a handsome well-made Langshan, and the bird placed before it at the Crystal Palace was also a fine thorough-bred Langshaq of absolutely the same type. We believe that all the birds in these Dairy Show classes, with the exception of two, were of our strain pure, Mr. Wright says ; — " When we at last hegan to notice birds of the same type, as occasionally shown by Miss Croad herself, and accordingly said so, she wrote, * This I emphatically deny," At the time Mr. Wright first wrote of this grand discovery we had kept Langshans for six years, they had been our almost, daily companions, we had watched and noted their habits, and variations, we knew their types of beauty well. Mr. Wright on the contrary had been using the Langshan as a closed book which he was now pretending to read by a mere glance at the cover. If Mr. Wright had not discovered any difference between the Langshan and the Cochin up to that time it was simply because he had kept his eyes closed. These Dairy Show classes were crowded with birds that no stretch of the imagination could have confounded with the Cochin. Mr. Wright's adverse criticisms at the time have helped us to retain a very vivid recollection of some individuals in these classes. As we stood near we heard many a passer by admire the beauty of a very highly commended pullet of Mr. Elwes, that had the advantage of the light. This bird together with a Cockerel bred by us (a thorough Langshan) was sold. The Cup pullet was a Langshan of great beauty Mr. Bush exhibited a fine thoroughbred Cockerel, Mr. Cowell sent up a bird in a basket labelled for pullets, and was consequently staged with the latter, he stood out from amongst them a fine sprightly Langshan. It so happened that a young hen entered by us was the only bird in her class completely over her moult, she was a perfect Langshan of perfect symmetry, yet Mr. Wright had no word of commendation for her I In the following January we sold her to a famous Scotch breeder and this bird won for her new possessor un-humbered Cups and 26 THE LANGSHAN FOWL. prizes up to a green old age. Besides this " Live Stock Journal " in its reports of the Scotch Shows, more than once gave her the highest enconiums ever passed on a Langshan. We do not say these reports were penned by Mr. Wright, but they were certainly sanctioned by the Journal. Mr. Thomson's bird having been rejected at the Crystal Palace gave rise to some remarks from Mr. Wright. He asked " why it had been passed over, for here was a bird with some type in it." ? On this Mr. Thomson wrote to "Live Stock Journal " " I am obliged by your reference in your elaborate report of this Show to my tvo unnoticed pens. I submit howeverthat there is no occasion wherefore you should take fright, and retreat from the " real type " of Langshans, which you had thought might have given the breed some character of its own and it humbly appears to me that the retreat ought to take place in a different quarter." ■ We were not exhibitors at the Crystal Palace in 1878, but we were present at the Show and considered the classes to have been judged carefully, and that the prizes had gone to the most meritorious birds. To the letter written by Mr. Thomson to " Live Stock Journal" Mr. Wright appended a foot-note from which we give an extract : — " We never said that type was prevalent, it is entirely different from any type ever shown yet by Major Croad or others who have been prominent in the matter — if Mr Thomson's birds be adopted Major Croad's must be rejected, and possibly the latter might object." He adds : — " The Heathen Langshan is peculiar, which the same we are free to maintain." We waited to see whether Mr. Thomson would lift ofT this charge from our yard, as he did not we wrote to do so. We said, "After what you have stated with regard to type, we fear Mr. Thomson's yard must be irretrievably damaged, he having received so largely of mine." In 1879 Mr. Wright continued his attacks, and after the THE LANGSHAN FOWL. 27 Birmingham Show Mr. J. A. Lloyd wrote to point out the unfairness of this. He said :— " The first prize cock in my possession was hatched from Mr. Croad's eggs ; when, therefore, you say ' the prizes all went to birds of the type first shown a year or two ago by Mr. Thomson, and which we then noted as bein? as different as could be to what we had seen of Mr. Croad's,' you must be mistaken, and it seems only just to Mr. Croad to say so." To this letter Mr, Wright appended a foot-note : — " We do not see that any mistake is proved against us, we carefully limited our statements to what we had seen, and it is a possible thing for Mr. Croad to have had eggs or stock from Mr. Thomson." In his report of the Dairy Show in 1880 Mr. Wright says of the Langshan classes : — " The judge, a Dorking Judge, seemed to us to have gone for colour, breast, and type of outline, as shown by Mr. Thomson some years ago as his three main points." With a pile of letters in our possession from Mr. Thomson, asking what the points of the Langshan really were, we could not but be amused at this. At Birmingham in 1880 we arranged for four classes with munificent prizes. For these classes, and on two other oc- casions, we received the thanks of the council for the help we had thus rendered the show. Yet Mr. Wright, who in T884 told us it had been his duty for thirteen consecutive years to report on the Asiatic classes at Birmingham, in which the Langshan was included, writes thus : — " By some misunderstanding the Langshans have not been noted. He adds : — "We can only record one general impression that the prizes most if not all went to birds of the Dorking type, which we first noted, as appearing from a Northern Yard and in favour of which the earlier type of bad Cochin seems discarded." Now this class was one of the best in the show, and numbered 66 entries. We' had procured four classes with the following prizes in each'r ist. £4., and. £2, 3rd. £1 los., 4th. ;^i. The persistent opposition that had pursued the Langshan by this time, had caused the original promoters of the Club to fall 28 THE LANGSHAN FOWL. •away — they continued to believe in, and most of them still culti- vated Langshans, but they had wearied of the perpetual antagot nism, and we were only leading a " forlorn hope." Our readers may therefore imagine with what labour and expense we had achieved these classes. We had been subscribers to " Live Stock" from its commencement, and naturally. looked forward to its giving publication to some sort of report of the Langshans — the failing to note the classes during the show, and the record- ing of the reporter's " general impression " after the event, tell their own tale ! It is greatly to be regretted that Mr. Wright should have seen fit to revive old grievances, and names no longer with us. So far from Mr. Davies having proved the perfect purity of his yard, with regard to the hens he won with at the Bath and West of England Agricultural show in 1885, he frankly acknowledged in the pages of " Live Stock Journal" that he had from the first had doubts of these birds, regretted having exhibited them, and did not intend to breed from them.'' In a letter addressed to us by that gentleman, on the 30th March, 1886, occurs the following passage : — " I said or did nothing at that Show, that I recall to mind that could hurt the feelings of anyone except the Judge, whom I found fault with for awarding the prizes as he did in the Hen class. I have ever regretted my indescretion for the sake of theLangshan in sending the big Cochin Hen, the great Scotch winner, I found out my mistalcp, and acknowledged it." We think the judge had some cause of complaint, for judges as a rule, are not practical Langshan breeders. Our original club was started with the view to keeping the Langshan pure, and a slip was sent to each candidate for membership to sign, by which he bound himself to maintain the rules of the club. When the club was revived in 1884, we fear this good observance became obsolete. After Mr. Davies's avowal of his mistake, we think the matter should have been allowed to pass into oblivion, but since Mr. Wright has chosen to make it the means of an attack on those who from the first have frgm the highjpst motives THE LANGSHAN FOWL. 29 Striven to keep the bird pure, our only course is to make the truth apparent. We are not acquainted with all the names in the prize list of the Dairy Show of 1884 given by Mr. Wright, but some of them we should certainly have believed to have exhibited pure stock, without a doubt. Mr. Wright says : — " She (Miss Croad) further wrote, (June 4th, 1886), that she had rejected the birds hatched from eggs Mr. Thomson had sent her, because they were so different from my own." Many of our correspondents were induced by Mr. Wright's panegyric on his bird to try Mr. Thomson's eggs, and as they rejected the birds hatched from them for the same reason, we need not enter into the matter here. He continues : — " She had previously to this written admitting that our advocacy of the Thomson type certainly for a short time had the effect intended, but implied that the victory was not yet won." In December, 1875, Mr. Wright, in answer to "Enquirer" about Langshans, writes : — "The accounts you have read are from interested parties. We long ago wrote that we could see no distinction between them (the Langshan) and the Black Cochins." Now when Mr. Wright penned these remarks no doubt " Enquirer" and the readers of " Live Stock Journal " generally^ believed him to have thoroughly sifted and proved this matter before committing himself to so rask, false, and libellous a state- ment. We must now revert to a passage we have already quoted from Mr. Wright's recent work. He says, " We noticed pens of Langshans shown by Mr. J. Thomson, of Aberdeen, in 1877 and 1878, which seemed to us to exhibit a type widely different from that of the Cochin — more significant to us to show the same type in all the pens!' Mr. Thompson did not exhibit in England at all in 1887, and when Mr. Wright added the footnote to Mr. Thomson's letter that appeared in " Live Stock Journal " on November 22nd, when he said : — " If Mr. Thomson's birds be adopted. Major Croad's must be rejected," 30 THE LANGSHAN FOWL. we are absolutely certain that this cockerel was the only bird of Mr. Thompson's that Mr. Wright had ever remarked upon. We are also absolutely certain that Mr. Heazledon's cup winner at the subsequent Palace Show was one of precisely the same type. We can add from personal observation that all the prize winners at this show were good typical Langshans. Langshans were exhibited in pairs at the Birmingham Show. In 1878, we won first with old birds, and Mr. Thompson was first with a cockerel and pullet. We are not in a position to say that the former was the same bird that had appeared at the Dairy and Crystal Palace Shows. Mr. Thomson did not exhibit at all in England in 1879, but in 1880 he made four entries in our Langshan classes at Birmingham, but as these were the classes that Mr. Wright had failed to take note of, of which he wrote . — " By some misunderstanding the Langshans have not been noted, and we only record our general impression that the prizes mostly if not all went to the Dorking type of body, which we first noted at this very Show, as appearing from a Northern Yard and in favour of which the earlier types of bad Cochins with no breast seems discarded. " Mr. Thomson was not a prize winner at this show, and Mr. Wright from his own confession, allowed the only opportunity afforded him of examining birds from this yard in full force, to escape his observation ! Mr. Wright reproduces the illustration of what he is pleased to term " The first or original Langshans," The birds pourtrayed by Mr. Gedney were faithful likenesses of a type that does appear, but not our favourite — the combs of both birds are apt to grow too large. It will be seen by the cock's spurs, or rather the absence of spur, that he was very young. As he grew older his plumage would tighten, and his tail assume more voluminous dimensions. It is however a bird that always affords ample breast meat, Mr. Wright speaks of a squirrel-tailed type of Langshan (unknown to us) as one peculiarly subject to leg-weakness. He remarks on the." Standard" published in the " Langshan Fowl" : " It was actually found necessary to put leg- weakness in the scale of defects with a penalty of twenty points; a fact which speaks volumes." He adds "the high tail THE LANGSHAN FOWL 3^ was moreover peculiarly iable to wry tail, which we noted in the pens repeatedly." — Videi/Lt. Wright's reports on the Langshan classes at Birmingham in 1880. Mr. Wright, in a footnote to p. 242 of his new work says : — "By a. curious inadvertence, Miss Croad has recently written letters warning breeders against the present propensity to judge too much by size. The simple fact is that the movement has been all the other way. In the original Langshan fowl " Standard " it was laid down that .size must be the first consideration, and an adult Cock should not weigh less than ten pounds, and in the points for judging, size was given fifty points out of one hundred . I Such a proportion was absolutely unheard of in any other breed of fowl even in the Dorking, In the new Standard it will be seen size is made only one of the first consideration, and the points are reduced to twenty, and the weight to nine pounds. We quite approve of that, so far as it goes, but it seems desirable to point out that the error was due to the first breeders, and not to the present." It was certainly a mistake to have written that size was the first consideration, and Mr. Gedney on seeing the license to which it had led would have been quick to discover this. To our President, Captain Terry, to whose wise ruling the Langshan owes so much, this alteration in the weight is mainly due. The first " standard " was drawn up in great haste, but we consider it to have been an excellent foundation. It is absurd for' Mr. Wright to make the honest desire of Langshan breeders, for a standard of the highest perfection, a case against the breed. The standards of other breeds have frequently undergone alterations, and in times past we have more than once seen it stated that the illustrations in Mr. Wright's original work had become old-fashioned. What did this mean ? No doubt the counting or summing up of our standard was to some extent, erroneous ; but one point that to our mind sums up all the points, was perfect, namely, " carriage " and " shape." As we before said the Langshan is a highly nervous bird, it actually clips up its wings and carries them low. At one of our club meetings, in 1884, a gentlemen on the committee told us he had watched a cock for two hours standing lazily, with wings carried low and tail sweeping the ground — a sudden noise cause it as suddenly to clip up its wings and throw its tail over its head. As for weight, we do not think ten 32 THE LANGSHAN FOWL pounds too much for an adult bird, although nine should not disqualify an otherwise perfect specimen. Mr. Wright gives ten pounds for the Dorking, and we suppose the Langshan may claim to be of equal weight ; but by an adult bird, we under- stand one that would be shown in the old bird classes, and not a bird of the current year. The American " standard " gives a definite weight for both old and young birds, for Cockerels eight pounds. If Mr. Wright read the letter he quotes from in " Fowls " he must have been aware that our protest was rather against coarseness of limb ^■aA flesh, than absolute size. A young Langshan from four to five months old is a tender morsel, a " hungry hunter " could eat bones and all, for the bones are mere cartilage. If on this slight framework exhibitors will crowd an overwhelming mass, we are not surprised that Mr. Wright should have had so many cases of leg weakness brought to his notice. We do not know why Mr. Gedney put leg weak- ness in the scale of defects — leg weakness is a rare occurrence in our own yard, and generally to be accounted for by the older birds running down the younger ones. We now proceed to deal with the Silkie Fowl. Mr. Wright says Cpage 239) :— " The Rev. C. W. Hamilton has done much to clear up this matter in some articles published in " Poultry '' during the year 1886, though we do not coincide in quite all his conclusions. It is necessary to premise that the Cochin itself is clearly a mixture of races, and hence we find it bursting out continually into long legs, and when crossed to "improve" farm poultry, always doing so. Mr. Hamilton then notices that Temminck's Gallus Mono or Negro Fowl probably of Southern origin, was not the Silky as now known, though the Silky is its chief modern descendant. Its chief points were black legs, puiple or dark combs, bluish skin, and dark periosteum or membrane covering its small bones. Mr. Hamilton states : — And his statements on this head, were never controverted, that the Langshan very often has a bluish-white skin, and that he has frequently observed the characteristic dark periosteum on the bones ; while it is notorious that Langshans very often exhibit a distinctly purple tinge about the head, and comb not as the result of illhealth, but evidently as a ten- dency to colour in the fowl. But the most remarkable fact is the strange tendency to breed Silky fowls which distinguishes it. The same gentleman collects evidence that a Silky appeared about 1878 in Mr. Houseman's yard, from a pair of birds hatched from eggs of Miss Croad's, and Mr. Housman also observed several Silky Langshans in a neighbour's flock of undoubted purity. The Rev. A. C. Davies bred one in 1883 frop Mr. Bush's Cup Cockerel (Croad strain) and hens hatched from Croad eggs ; THE LANGSHAN FOWL. J3 the pedigree of this case was at first disputed, but afterwards admitted. Two years later Mr. Davies had another from eggs of Mr. Orme's (also Croad strain) and another gentleman bred a Silky in 1884. In 1885 Mr. Hamilton bred nine out of fifty ; and Miss Croad herself reports Silkies bred in a yard she traces to Cochin blood. The Cochin, however, breeds this sport so much more rarely, that it appears certain they were due even in that case to the Langshan parentage, rather than the other. The Silky also lays a pinkish egg ; and where not brown, that is the colour of the Langshan's egg. That the Silky breeds single combs, and bare legs, and that Langshans were imported with crest, and rose-combs, and bare legs, must also be taken into account." In 1886, the Editor of "Poultry" liberally threw open its columns to the discussions of "The Variations" to be met with in the Langshan — we say liberally, for the Lanshan has not always been a favourite topic. We note that other breeds are equally privileged, and we think our readers will agree with us that this is the best and only method of arriving at right con- clusions. Whilst on this subject we would also record our indebtedness to the Exiitor of "Live Stock Journal'" (now "Fancier^ Gazette ") for the " fair field and no favour " accorded to all sides and shades of opinion in 1884, and from that date. No doubt Mr. Hamilton's articles to some extent conduced to the threshing out of the truth, but they did not contribute one iota towards its discovery. We commenced reading these articles with great interest, but we had not proceeded far before we discovered that they were written in the presence of a yard that had not been kept pure. Mr. Hamilton's wild theories, and false conclusions, and incorrect statements, soon wearied us, and if we failed to " controvert '' his statement "That the Langshan very often has a- bluish- white skin, and that he has frequently observed the characteristic dark periosteum on the bones, whilst it is notorious that Langshans very often exhibit a distinctly purple tinge about the head and comb, not as the result of ill-health, but as a tendency to colour in the fowl," we did not contradict this, because the statement was so opposed to our practical experience, that we felt it would contradict itself in the mind of the merest tyro of a Langshan breeder, who had kept his yard pure. We have kept Langshans from 1872 to the present year, 1889 — during this time we have D 34 THE LANGSHAN FOWL bred many thousands of Langshans, but we have never met with the slightest trace of Silky in a single bird — indeed our Langshans have always come true to points of breed. Although we kept Dorking hens to cross with for many years, and occa- sionally a cross-bred hen (that would tint her eggs) in all the broods we have sent out, we have never been reproached with a five clawed bird. Of course an accidental mixing up of the eggs might have led to such a mistake, but none has ever been reported to us. We can point to a yard of some extent that has been bred solely from ours since 1877. These birds have a wide range, and are running about absolutely wild (as is the case with some of ours), the Langshans in this yard have come over and over again true to points of breed ; they have never had a trace of Silky in them. In 1886 we could point to three smaller yards of which the same could be said. We have lost touch of two of these, but the third continues to breed true. Mr. Harry Wallis, the gentleman who has kindly taken upon himself the onerous duties of Secretary to the Langshan Club, tells us he has had four importations from Langshan, and that neither in theimported birds, or their progeny, has he seen either traces of Silky, five claws or purple comb. The first intima- tion we ever had of a silky occuring in a Langshan yard, was in Mr. Hamilton's letter of December 25th, 1885, and later on in a letter of Mr. Housman's. After the publication of Mr. Wright's book last year, we wrote to ask Mr. Bush if he had ever met with any trace of Silky in his Langshans, and he told, us he had hatched some from eggs he had purchased, he thought, from us, but was not quite sure. These eggs must have come from elsewhere. It is at any rate clear that they could not have influenced the cock sold to Mr. Hamilton in 1885. We sent Mr. Housman his first Langshan eggs in 1878 — he did not write again until 1880, when he told us his former hatch had given him a chicken for each egg, but he made no mention of silkies. We think we know the origin of those Mr. Housman £poke of as appearing in a neighbours yard, but we do not care THE LANGSHAN FOWL. 35 to give names, and we feel sure that Mr. Housman and Mr. Bush will accept this circumstantial evidence we have given as final. We know these gentlemen to be most careful breeders, and that any tainted bird that appeared in their yards would have but short shrift. If, side by side with Mr. Hamilton's statements, that out of between forty and fifty chickens reared he had as many as nine Silky Langshans, and ours that in many thousands we have never seen the slightest indication, we think we have proved our case. But we will make a minute examination of Mr. Hamilton's arguments. He writes on December 25th, 1885 :— " To attribute the Silky cross to the Cockerel bought from Mr. Davies, is absurd, for a truer Langshan never stepped. " In another paragraph of the same letter he seems to favour the notion that his Silky Langshans, like Queen bees, were probably due to pasturage, for he writes : — "But to return to the Silky Langshans, which I have hatched this season. If this is an evolutional changd, there must be some promoting cause, in the surroundings of the birds. Here I am at a loss. My Langshans are kept out in the open country ; they roost in a shed, which stands in what was formerly a plantation, but the trees have been nearly all felled, and the ground is covered with great tufts of long coarse grass, short bushes, brambles, and rushes ; here they are undisturbed, and seldom see any one but the feeder. Many fly up into trees for a considerable portion of the year. Now what can there be in such surroundings to favour the development of a Silky variation ! Is there any connection, between the wiry grass and the unwebbed plumage ? " In one of three letters received by us from Mr. Davies in 1886, he entered fully into the pedigree of his poultry yard. From this letter we give a quotation : — " When I wrote last of the Silky Langshans, and stated that my commencement of poultry keeping (with Langshans I mean), began with the Cup Cockerel, Bush's (a strain now much valued because yours) and three pullets hatched from your eggs, I had little idea that you or anyone else would repudiate my statement without positive proofto the contrary." Again he refers to his yard : — " I began in 1881 with Cup Cockerel, Palace, Bush's, and three Pullets, hatched from our eggs, I got -*. few chicks from these, my next move was a Cockerel from Mrs. 36 THE LANGSHAN FOWL. Bennett's (Elgin) your strain I believe, from this bird, and a pullet from the pen above, I got two Cup birds in 1883 a Pullet, and a Cockerel. Birds from these pens, were the foundation of my strain. My next fresh blood was Gould's prize winning Cock which bred the father of the Silky Langshans." In the course of events, we think the cockerel from which the Silkies were supposed to have been descended, would more probably be due to Mr. Gould's bird than to Mr. Bush's 1881 cockerel ; but Mr. Gould wrote on the 26th February : — " Your readers may be interested to hear, that though I have bred some hundreds of Langshans, during the past five years, I have never had one with a Silky or any other taint ; and my stock at the present time although I do not exhibit as my time is wholly taken up, is perfectly pure." We would repeat in this discussion that the hens seem to have been entirely ignored. We believe Mr. Gould to have kept his yard perfectly pure, and the taint, for taint it was must be looked for elsewhere. Mr. Wright says : — "The Rev. A. C. Davies bred one in 1883 from Mr. Bushs Cup Cockerel (Croad's strain) and hens hatched from Croad's eggs ; the pedigree of this case was at first disputed and afterwards admmitted." He adds "Two years later Mr. Davies bred another from eggs of Mr. Orme's: (also Croad strain) ! " We feel sure Mr. Orme never bred any Silky from our eggs, or from birds descended from them. What Mr. Wright would convey by his statement " that the pedigree of this case was at first disputed and afterwards admitted " we are at a loss to know. As our name was freely used we had surely a right to be con- sidered a factor in this case. The first intimation we had ever heard or read of a Silky Langshan was in Mr. Hamilton's letter of the 25th December, 1885, and we were never once consulted on the matter. We can only repeat most emphatically that we have never met with the slightest trace of Silky in our own yard. Both Mr. Wright and Mr. Hamilton quote our remarks on the Silkies we had heard of as being kept by Black Cochin breeders, but they entirely missed the point of our argument and the impression we desired to convey. What we said was that a Black Cochin breeder, who possessed a yard of Silkies, had been THE LANGSHAN FOWL. 37, reported to us as having sold Black Cochins to Langshan exhibitors to mate with their birds for increased size. It was suggested to us that Silkies are difficult to keep within bounds and that they had probably intruded on the Black Cochin runs. We should not look upon this as a case of " evolution," but simply as a "cross." Mr. Hamilton speaks of having had Langshans more or less laced, the plain English of which is more or less crossed. He gives us as an authority, or rather as a con- firmation of his manj' theories, he says : — " Even in Sussex Mr. Cioad quotes a parallel case, the result of his hatches having been affected for some time by the visits of a wild pheasant." This is what he bases his authority upon : — "Our man in opening one of the runs for four mornings in succession found a pheasant had intruded, we supposed it had made its entrance through the ventilator at the top, on these being kept closed his visits ceased, but a few chickens that were hatched shortly after the event showed signs of his visits." We should not have dignified these chicken by the name of evolutions, but merely have considered them a very appetising cross. Mr. Hamilton tells us : — ^' He and Mr. Davies are fully agreed that many hens, that without doubt were descended from imported stock have exhibited either in themselves, or their offspring such traces of resemblance to half bred Cochins as can be accounted for in no other way, than that they had at some time or other been mixed up with the Cochin." He continues : — " Nor is there any improbability in assuming.that among the village poultry where the Langshan originated there were many birds of the ordinary Shanghai sort." This we feel sure we can decidedly contradict. The district possesses natural barriers that would negative such an assump- tion. Many breeders have given themselves opportunities of crossing with the present Cochin, and as the latter had ad- mittedly (we quote Mr. Wright), taken a large infusion of Langshan blood, there would be a strong resemblance. Mr. Hamilton adds : — "The cloven foot will betray its presence; from the sudden cross of a splendid cock and hen of different imported strains ; I once bred a chicken with yellow legs, and feet." 38 THE LANGSHAN FOWL. The hen in this case had no doubt been previously mated. As Mr. Hamilton wandered up and down the pages of '^Poultry" he certainly sought out for the Langshan a splendid family tree — one in which were associated the most delicious table fowls that have ever graced the social board. We find the Le Fleche, the Creve, the Houdan, especially the latter amongst its collateral ancestors, or in some way allied to it. Far be it from us to repudiate these noble alliances. What happened so long ago does not concern us so much as the present. We know we have an old established and very distinct breed. This has been proved over and over again by the way in which the Langshan stamps itself on its progeny, and retains its influence through succeeding generations. In order to account for the white skin and delicious flesh of the Langshan being found in its present "habitat," Mr. Hamil- ton suggests that the early nomad tribes m^y have brought them thither in the course of their wanderings. We are not scientific, but we should suppose that the domestication of - Poultry in the world's history has been delayed until mankind had resolved itself into settled habitations. Probably the walls of ancient Rome had become well-hardened by time before any Columellas appeared on the scene. Mr. Hamilton quotes the Latin historian, who tells us that "The Roman legions going to attack certain villages of the Germanic tribes, which were hidden in the forest, were guided to the object of their search by the crowing of cocks." It should be noted that these people were already congregated together in villages, and were not leading a nomadic life. Even should these good nomads have started with the benevolent intention of benefiting posterity — would they stay their march onward " to fresh fields and pastures new " because the sitting hen had not accomplished her days? Then again, how would they reconcile that lady, when the broody fit was on her, to a change of home and scene ? The chicken ; too would prove a sorry problem, as those acquainted with the pleasant troubles of henwifery pan THE LANGSHAN FOWL. 39 testify. We have tried in vain to follow Mr. Hamilton's theories to a clear issue ; they are as many as the " Butterflies that glance across the sunbeams track, To take the truant schoolboy off his tasks." The fact seems evident that Mr. Hamilton in his philosophical experiments used the Langshan as a cross, but whatever breed he used it to cross with, it being a pure and dominant one, would declare itself prominently. Some of these crosses Mr. Hamilton has mistaken for pure, and others for evolutionary changes. When we sent the first Langshan eggs to Mr. Hamilton, he told us he was keeping Black Hamburghs. We have always thought it highly probable that the rose-combed bird sent us in 1877, was a cross with the Hamburgh, but of this we cannot speak certainly, for the bird has never been accounted for. We have asked in vain for more cocks and hens of the rose-combed variety, but these have never been forthcoming. This importa- tion after its arrival from the Langshan district, was delayed some time in Shanghai, waiting for a ship that would consent to take, what is generally looked upon as an unwelcome freight. In the meantime they were entertained in the yard of a friend, who kept various breeds and crosses, and we have always sus- pected that this rose-combed bird was one of the latter. That we considered the bird of uncertain pedigree, we proved at the time by offering to replace those eggs that had betrayed his in- fluence. In the earlier history of the Langshan, we received anonymous letters from persons evidently not of education, reproaching us for having introduced the Langshan into this country. Some years ago a gentleman opened a correspondence with us with a view to prove that we were under a delusion, and that the Langshan was nothing more or less than an inferior Cochin. He expressed himself as very anxious to make a trial of some birds direct from our yard in order to prove that we were mistaken, but as at the same time he gave us the name of a gentleman whom we knew to have pure stock, we declined to supply him with 40 THE LANGSHAN FOWL. birds. The correspondence however continued, and at length he wrote in jubilant tone to tell us he had at last seen some real Croad Langshans, he said " these birds were evidently a cross with the Hamburgh, and the gentleman who owned them, had told him he was afraid to allow his Langshan hens to hatch out their own eggs, as they were apt to eat the chicken." On reading this we wrote off in hot haste to demand the name of the gentleman who had ventured to associate our yard with these " monsters." To this letter we received no reply and the corres- pondence ceased. It will be borne in mind that even the name Langshan was for some years denied to the breed. No sooner however was this matter quietly settled and the name allowed, than writers started up in various papers, declaring we had from the first spelt it wrong. They avowed that the true spelling was Lanchang and added regretfully, they feared the name had now been so long mispelt that correction would not be possible. All these writers made side attacks on the purity of the breed, which was a sure, and certain evidence that they knew nothing whatever about the district. On reading these articles we wrote off to some of our China correspondents, asking why they had given us the « wrong spelling of the name. One of these advised us to send to J. D. Potter, agent for the Admiralty Charts, 31, Poultry, and procure a map in which the Langshan district is comprised, this we have done, and give it in reduced form for the benefit of our readers, who will be able to prove that if we have sinned it has at any rate been in good company. One of our correspondents sent us a China vocabulary by which we find the language possesses neither grammar or dictionary, under such circumstances to be down on the unlucky wight who has misplaced a letter, seems somewhat far fetched. A friendly correspondent not fully informed on all points, with regard to this silky " evolution '' remarked to us that it could make no difference, whether Silkies were found in the breed or not, to this we fully agree, but with Mr. Hamilton's Silkies we THE LANGSHAN FOWL 4^ should have to accept so much that is entirely at variance with all we have discovered in the Langshan that it would absolutely mongrelize the breed. For instance the Langshan never sports five claws ; it never has white ear-lobes, and the purplish tinge about the head, and comb spoken of by Mr. Hamilton and Mr. Wright, are conditions unknown to a Langshan in good health. The " different spectrum " seen in the Langshan blood, by Mr. Wright must we think have been produced by a Silkie cross. No wonder that gentleman should be led to exclaim. "The Heathen Langshan is peculiar." Accidental crosses may appear in the best and most carefully kept yards, this most breeders know to their cost, but to accept these crosses as pure, and even as evidence of purity, does not show a very intimate acquaintance with the Langshan. As Mr. Wright acknowledged in his later edition, page 241, " It (the Langshan) is an admirable fowl. The skin is not only white but very thin and the meat is extremely white and sapid .... it is one of the best layers of any breed known, though the eggs are perhaps rather small . . . These qualities combined with size, and a colour that gives the town breeder no trouble in caring for it, are rapidly extending its popularity on all sides ; and the general verdict is, that it is one of the best, and for many localities the very best fowl we have." But Mr. Wright is in error when he states that Miss Croad had in any way " hindered " the progress of the breed towards popular favour. Had it not been for the watch she has kept over the Lang- shan it would as far as the show pen is concerned, have been stamped out and a mongrel have taken its place, indeed even now notwithstanding all her solicitude, the prizes (and often the best) go to impure stock. Mr. Wright charges those who have stood by the Langshan /«re as having been meanly jealous if any ^ut certain parties won their prizes, but this is a charge she repudiates for herself and others ; she has never been guilty of petty jealousy because others have won, she has never put her own yard to the fore. No, not in a single instance ! And to this her correspondents all over the world can testify. She has merely been jealous for the purity of the breed, and this brings us to another error into 42 THE LANGSHAN FOWL. which Mr. Wright has unhappily fallen. He suggests that the Langshan is a composite breed, that it is not : on the contrary it is one of the purest if not the purest breed we have, and had Mr. Wright been at the pains to gain his information first hand, that is by keeping Langshans himself, he must have discovered this to be a self evident fact. The breed declares it to be so without any outside help. THE IMPORTATION OF THE LANGSHAN INTO ENGLAND. A LETTER bearing date November -^"^ 27th 1 87 1, conveyed to the late Major Croad intelligence that a nephew residing in the north of China, had made the purchase of a new breed of fowls for him. Successive letters made mention of these birds. " The fowls I am sending you are very fine ; their plumage is of a bright, glossy black. I am told that their flesh is excellent. The Chinese say they are allied to the Wild Turkey. They are valuable birds — you must be careful of them, and get them acclimatised by degrees." We- would here remark that although this statement of a Turkey alliance was made when our first importation was purchased, it has not been confirmed by subsequent correspon- dents — the fine skin and snowy flesh of the Langshan might however, excuse those unacquainted with ornithology for accept- ing such a legend. When the fowls made their appearance here on the 14th of February, 1872, they looked somewhat jaded, and were at first very shy ; but this was scarcely to be wondered at, for the many vicissitudes of climate they had under- gone, and the unusual locomotion of the last few hours must have tried them considerably. There had, however been no casualties. They soon grew familiar, and in less than a week 44 THE LANGSHAN FOWL. their combs and wattles resumed their brilliant red, and their feathers their glorious sheen. On the i6th (two days after their arrival) the hens commenced to lay, and we then made a shrewd guess, which has since been amply verified, that these splendid creatures would prove as hardy as they were beautiful, and that no gradual acclimatisation would be needed. All who were introduced to our new acquisition agreed in unqualified admiration of their beauty and novelty. A naval officer, who had served in the Chinese War, and had, since his retirement, been a breeder of various kinds of poultry, said, " I have never seen any birds like yours either in China or England ; I am sure you have something quite new, and you ought to send them to the next Crystal Palace Show." As we knew nothing about exhibitions, we did not at first take kindly to this proposition, but after awhile the conceit of having something new overcame our reluctance, and we wrote to the secretaries of the Crystal Palace Poultry Show, who from the description given of his birds, said they believed that Major Croad was in possession of a breed of fowls quite new to this country. Our old birds were at the time of the show in full moult, and those sent up to the palace were not well matched, but our Cockerels and Pullets have never since been surpassed ; and although they only brought home a V. H. C, yet we know there were those who thought them inferior to none in that vast assem- blage. Unfortunately circumstances prevented out being present at this show, and it was not until the following May that we heard the name " Black Cochin " in connection with the Langshan. Our poultry lore extended far enough for us to be aware that what we in England call the Cochin is really a Shanghai bird ; we also knew that our friends in China were familiar with the Cochin, but that their acquaintance with the Langshan was of recent date. After the appear- ance of our birds, at the Crystal Palace in 1872, there began to be a great talk of instituting a separate class for Elack THE LANGSHAN FOWL. 45 Cochins ; and upon one being established in November, 187.3, we, supposing the name " Black Cochin " to have been given to our birds in error, but in good faith, entered three pairs of Lan'gshans in the Black Cochin class at the Crystal Palace Show of 1873. The class numbered in all about sixteen pens, but we soon perceived that we had committed an egregious error in entering our birds in a class to which they did not belong. When we had entered them in the " Variety " class they were called " Black Cochins," but in the Black Cochin class they were sneered at for their lack of Cochin points ; their combs were too large, their tails were too long (no sickle feathers allowed their legs and beaks and around their eyes should have been yellow ; and, indeed, to satisfy these cavillers, we must have instituted a sort of bed of Procrustes, and tortured our birds to fit into their standard of excellence, although anything but a pure Langshan would have been the result. In the meantime a letter from China contained this pithy advice : — " As your birds seem not to be understood or appreciated, why bother about exhibitions ! " Why indeed ! And we resolved henceforth to keep them at home — at any rate, until Langshan classes could be formed. But this did not prevent us from unearthing the Black Cochin whenever occasion offered, and we soon perceived that their breeders were not without their difficulties, for with all their borrowed plumes they had failed to establish the true Cochin type. The tails of the poor birds had to submit to trimming and plucking, and the legs in the show-pen were of various shades — from dark pencilled to yellow. They had only produced a mongrel after all ! In the autumn of 1875 we received a letter from Mr. Gedney, addressed to the late Major Croad, inquiring if we still kept our breed of Langshans pure, etc. To this we replied, giving the history of our Langshan troubles, and the cause of our birds' retirement from public life ; and from that date he has worked with us in our endeavour to obtain that recognition for the Langshan to which it is fully entitled. Through his exertions a 46 THE LANGSHAN FOWL. separate class was obtained for them at the Bromley Show in 1875. So powerful had the opposition proved, that although we had occasionally advertised Langshan eggs, and birds, in the Poultry journals and local papers, we only sold two sittings of eggs, and three birds from 1872 to 1876. It will thus be seen we held the breed in our hands during all this time not only reaping no return but at great cost. The recipients of our birds, and eggs fully acknowledged the excellence and purity of the Langshan and strengthened the cause by so much added testimony. A gentle- man to whom we supplied one of these sitting in the autumn of 1875 sent us a cutting from the "Field" containing a letter from Captain Arthur of H.M.S. " Iron Duke," giving a description of some fowls he had brought over from China, under the name of " Soo-choos." He had purchased them on the island of Chusan, and the account he gave of these birds so entirely corresponded with the appearance of the Langshan that we sent the letter on to Mr. Gedney, who in an article to the "Field" of December 4th,' 187s, advocated the claims of the Langshan to public favour with great force and ability. This letter was followed by one from an old resident in China. It was signed " Shanghai " and fully endorsed all that Mr. Gedney had said of the breed. We afterwards discovered that the writer of this letter was Mr. Richmond Keele the gentleman to whom we believe is due the honour of introducing the Pekin duck to this country. Our China correspondents tell us that the Lang- shans purchased by Captain Arthur on the island of Chusan, must have been imported thither as much as they would be to England, for it is not a breed common to the island, Chusan is well known to the European residents in China as the burying place of the soldiers and sailors that fell in our first war with China. Some years ago a friend who had made one of a party of visitors to the island sent us a full account of the burying place, giving the ppitaph of every grave on the spot, all telling a more or less pathetic tale. THE LANGSHAN FOWL. 47 We think that a letter written subsequently by Mr. Keele would well find a place here : it appeared in " Live Stock Journal" March 7th, 1884, as a sequel to one written by Mr. Harrison Weir : — " I was very pleased to see in the journal that interesting article on the Langshan fowl, especially coming as it did from such an authority as Mr. Harrison Weir. My long residence in China enables me to confirm all his remarks, as to the Langshan being a distinct breed, peculiar to the district from which it takes it name, the langshan crossing on the river Yangstre, some hundred miles or so from Shanghai. It is more than twenty years since I first saw these large black fowls brought from there, and when in Shanghai last winter I was offered a crate full that had just arrived from the same place. It is a strange fact that this breed of fowls has been kept pure, and bred as they have been to retain all their good qualities, in- different as the Chinese notoriously are to keeping breeds of fowls or animals distinct, taking indeed as a rule no trouble in the matter. Only in the breeding of the Langshan fowl, the Silkies, the Pekin duck, and I might add the Pekin Pug, have I ever seen in China any attempt at keeping a breed distinct. Cochins of the various sorts, buff, brown, partridge, and light and dark silver pencilled (these last no doubt the origin of the Brahma of to-day), may be seen at the villages about Shanghai running together, with no attempt to keep the varieties separate. It is true that in different parts of China breeds both of animals and poultry peculiar to the district may be found. For instance, I have seen cattle brought from the far interior of China very similar to the old-fashioned Herefords, with deep red coats, mottled faces, straight backs, and rather long horns ; while on the Easterp Coast", cattle of the Brahimin type obtain ; short in the horn, and with the hump so distinctive of the Indian animals ; while from Soochow, one used to get a breed of geese of very great «ize, quite unlike in shape and carriage to the geese usually seen in China. And so with the Southern Rice Dogs, in each case I believe the animals were the common breed of the district, but no trouble had ever been taken to keep them pure. " The Langshan fowl, as well as being endowed with the numerous good qualities described by Mr. Harrison Wier, retains also in its name a title really descriptive of the place from whence it comes, and so, unlike most of the other varieties of poultry, which rejoice in most inappropriate titles, for instance the Cochin — can it be ^supposed for a moment that the originals came from Cochin China ? At the time the first importation arrived, now some forty years ago. Cochin China was almost a terra incognita, there were no ports opened to foreigners or any vessels coming thence to England. Certainly in Cochin China, at the present time, this large breed of fowl is not to be seen, unless it be a few in possession of some of the Chinese traders who have come from Canton and Hong Kong. It is not the common breed of the country which are small. In Shanghai, on the other hand, these large fowls are very common, and Shanghai was opened to foreign commerce about the time these birds were introduced into England. I have no doubt, in my own mind, that it was from there that the first birds came and that they should rightly be called Shanghais, and not Cochins. So with the Brahmas — has a large breed at all like this ever been seen on the Brahma Pootra or any of the districts adjacent ? All the fowls I have ever come across in that part of the world have been small, excepting now and again a 4* THE LANGSHAN FOWL. larger bird of the Malay type. In Shanghai silver pencilled birds 6t the Cochin type are common enough, and from these Brahmas have doubtless been bred ! " As a boy I remember the fowls now classed as Malays were called Chittagongs or Malays. I was in Chittagong last year, and then made diligent search in the markets and country, and hardly saw a specimen, though the port is still noted for its poultry. The chief exports coast-wise being eggs and coolies, the first going to -Rangoon in immense qualities. The breed was rightly enough called Malay, for wherever Malays, with their cock-fighting proclivities, are found there these fowls abound. I have seen a hundred or more cocks tethered by a string round the leg on a patch of grass just far enough apart to prevent fighting. A breed of fowls that as a boy, in the Isle of Wight, I possessed, was the Rumpless, then also called Cingalese. One never sees them now at any of the Shows, though they were a hand- some useful sort. Waterton, in one of his essays, speaks of these fowls belonging to a villager near Walton Hall, who professed to have got them from the island.* If I remember rightly the naturalist did not look on them as a distinct breed, but as abnormal specimens of common fowls, which had been bred from, and which retained their peculiarities. I did not hold the same opinion, and recent experience confirms my idea that they are a pure breed. Last year I was travelling in Burmah, and at a little known port in Arracan, Kyouk, Phyoo (it will be better known perhaps when its natural mineral oil wells are developed), I saw at a village some veritable Rumpless fowls, excepting some a friend in Sydney, N.S. Wales, showed me fifteen years ago, the first I had seen since I left the Isle of Wight many years ago. I saw no other until I reached Monlmein, where there were a few. Further South, in Savoy and Mergin, they were plentiful enough, and I think they should have been called Tenasserim fowls, and not Cingalese. I certainly never saw any like them in Ceylon. However, forty years ago, when many of these breeds received their names, the genus globe-trotter was not invented, and people's geographical ideas were rather mixed." Our readers will, we think, agree with us that Mr. Keele's testimony is that of a traveller who has seen a great deal, and gives us his views on a matter of which he can speak with absolute certainty without the slightest bias. From the appearance of Mr. Gedney's letter in the "Field" may be dated a new epoch in the history of the Langshan. That gentleman was the recipient of a voluminous correspondence ; all of which he handed on to us. At the close of December we received letters from M. St. Hilaire, the Director-General of the Acclimatisation Gardens in Paris, and M. Pierre Amedee Pichott, the editor of the Revue Brittanique, himself an ornithologist, and the author of a valuable *It is to be noted that Darwin also speaks of these birds as "so variable in character that they hardly deserve to be called a breed." THE LANGSHAN FOWL. 49 work illustrative of the various plants and animals acclimatised in the Society's gardens. These gentlemen asked for further particulars of the Langshan, and after some correspondence a pair of these birds was sent to the Acclimatisation Society. The Director, in writing to inform us of their arrival says : "We consider the Langshan an interesting and precious addition to our collection. They are consigned to o\xx poulerie, a portion of the gardens devoted to domestic fowls, of which we have fifty varieties." The colour of the legs must have proved a great difficulty ; for whereas in 1872 the dark legs of our birds were objected to, we find in 1874 the judges began to affect this dark pencilling, and we have on record the complaint of a Black Cochin breeder that his birds had been rejected on account of their yellow legs. " I thought yellow was the right colour to breed into," he says. And so it had been up to th^ time of Major Croad's importation, but when in availing himself of the sheen of the Langshan, the Black Cochin breeder found himself obliged to accept the hue of its legs, instead of giving honour to whom honour was due, he merely said, " Mais nous avons changd tout cela ! " In the following May the unsolicited honour of the Acclimatisa- tion Society's medal was awarded the importer of these birds. At home, in the meantime, we had sent eggs to various parts of England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. As the chickens grew and prospered we began to receive inquiries about exhibitions. We had already experienced the tender mercies of the " Variety " Class, and had resolved never again to avail ourselves of that " refuge for the destitute " so we determined to see what could be done towards forming Langshan classes at one of the leading shows, and it was at length arranged that the Langshan should appear on its own merits at the Crystal Palace. After this show a section of the "fancy" made the Langshan classes a subject of virulent attack, one declar- ing the classes to be a " queer joke," and that our birds were the " dingiest and least lustrous in the Show." Another in counting 50 THE LANGSHAN FOWL. up the various breeds that had appeared, pointedly left the Langshan out, disdainfully remarking that it was not worthy to be counted amongst the statistics of the show. The Langshan has " run the gauntlet " and still survives. It is with great regret we reopen this matter, but recent utter- ances oblige us to do so. Letters subsequently poured in from Langshan breeders who had been non-exhibitors, some of these regretted that they could not have replaced our " dingy " birds with some of theirs which were lustrous in sheen, and on the 28th of December the following letter appeared in the " County : " — " Having carefully read the correspondence in your paper for the past nine months on the Langshan fowl, I cannot see that its opponents have at all shaken the position originally claimed for it by Mr. Gedney. >io one seems fairly and exhaustively to have gone into the merits and demerits of the Cochin and Langshan side by side, and opinions, however strong, vrithout evidence to support them, must not be allowed to oyemAe facts. As an amateur, I have bred these birds in a yard by themselves, with two kinds of Cochins, also in a yard by themselves, side by side, and I am strongly impressed with the individuality of the Langshans as a distinct family from those recognised as Cochins. I think for beauty and real utility, the Langshans deserve to be better known, and those who are now striving to popularise these birds are doing good service to the public by endeavouring to increase a valuable food supply. " "My object in writing is to request you to allow me, through your columns^ to appeal to Mr. Croad, as the representative of the original introducer of the Langshan, to seriously consider the propriety of establishing a ' Langshan Club,' upon some such basis as the Leghorn, or the proposed Spanish Club ; and if he can see his way thereto, and will kindly take it in hand, I think he need have no fears for the result." To this appeal we at once responded, and the Club held its first meeting at the Westminster Aquarium, Colonel Crawley, a brothei- officer of the late Major Croad (although not a Poultry Fancier,) kindly taking the Chair. Mr. Lambert was appointed President and Mr. Frank Nunn acted as Vice-President on this occasion. The following rules were the result of our meeting. Rules of the "Langshan" Poultry Club. I. — That a Poultry Club be and is hereby established, to be called and known by he name of "The Langshan Club." IL — That the object and purpose of this Club be the honourable protection and extended cultivation of the Langshan Fowl, as introduced from Langshan in the North of China, in the year 1872, by the late Major Croad, of Durrington, Sussex. HI. — That to promote the above object, as many and as liberal prizes as the fiinds ■ will permit be offered for the competition of Members of the Club, at such leading THE LANGSHAN FOWL. 51 Shows as the Committee may determine ; and that a notification of such Shows be sent to each Member. IV. — That a Special Committee be appointed to decide upon a "Standard of Excellence " for the Langshan ; and that their decision be final. V. — That the management of the Club be vested in the following permanent Hon- orary Officers (who will be ex-officio Members of the Com mittee), viz. ; President, Vice President Secretary, and Treasurer, and a Committee of Eight Members, one half of whom shall retire annually, but be eligible for re-election. Three Members of the Committee to form a quorum for business. VI. — That persons admitted to Membership do subscribe (at their own option) One Guinea or Half a [Guinea per annum. AH Members alike to share the benefits of the Club, and Vote, but the Guinea Subscribers only be eligible to serve on the Committee, VII. — Foreigners subscribing to the funds of the Club shall at once be entered as Honorary Members of the Committee, VIII. — That Non-Members of the Club who may offer special Prizes (of not less than Three Guineas value) for competition by Members, be entered in the Register as Patrons. IX. — That the power of admitting Members be vested in the Committee. That the names of persons attending this Meeting, or proposed and seconded thereat, be forthwith entered in the Register of the Club as Members. That persons hereafter desirous of Membership apply to the Committee, and at next meeting be ballotted for — one-third adverse Votes to exclude. X. — That any Member who in the opinion of the Committee behaves dishonourably may be expelled by a two-thirds Vote, and shall have no fiirther claim on the Club. No special reason need be given for such Vote. XI. — That Cards of Membership be signed by the President and Secretary, and supplied as Vouchers of the same. XII. — That Members omitting to pay Subscriptions for three months after date, and after receiving notice of the same, shall have their names erased. XIII. — That Members only be eligible to compete for Club Prizes. XIV. — That Members wishing to compete for Club Prizes do enter their names and pay their fees, &c., through the Secretary. XV. — That Members be supplied with a copy of these Rules, and sign a paper expressing their willingness to abide in all points thereby. XVI. — That two Meetings be held yearly — one to be called the " Annual Meeting," for the Election of Committee, passing Accounts, &c, — the dates and places to be fixed by Committee. XVI. — That Members of the Committee be permitted to Vote by Proxy on Forms provided for that purpose. These rules were assented to at our first meeting. We must add that they were framed by one who has never at any time exhibited a Langshan. We have always found it very difficult to maintain rule the 13th. It was inserted in no illiberal spirit, but with the sincere desire to prevent the Langshan from being 52 THE LANGSHAN FOWL. stamped out as a mongrel. In looking back on the past few .years it seems a marvellous thing that a breed possessing so many fine qualities should have met with such persistent opposition. We have literally had to fight for every inch of gtound. There is no doubt, in making this stand against the Langshan, Cochin breeders hoped to do away with its identity. We quote from an article that appeared about this time. The writer tells us " that the Langshan is not only a mongrel, but a sad mongrel ; " he says " it is his belief that they are a cross between the Black Cochin and some white-skinned plump fowl. Be they, however, mongrels or a distinct breed, one thing is certain, and that is, weedy Black Cochins have done duty for Langshans in their own classes, and Black Cochin breeders advertise and sell their refuse birds as birds of the Langshan type ; and as these are purchased as Langshans, whatever their origin may have been, such birds will soon be wanting in those peculiarities which Langshan admirers claim for their breed ." Such a warning was not to be lost upon us. It has been urged that by strictly adhering to rule the 13th, the best birds would possibly have to be passed over ; but as the Club prizes have always been devised to help Langshan classes, and to enable the committees of shows to give an increased number of prizes to an increased number of recipients, the show prizes would be open to all comers, and surely a judge could be empowered to affix some mark of distinction to any pen of peculiar merit. We could not, of course, prevent Cochin breeders from selling their " weedy Black Cochins as Langshans," but of the two evils would it not be wise to choose the lesser? — better (supposing such a case) to allow a club member with an inferior Langshan to carry off its cup than that a half-bred Cochin be endowed with it, and thus defeat the main object for which the Club was formed. It must be remembered that the work of the Langshan Club has differed materially from that of the Leghorn, Spanish, &c. Whilst we have been battling to keep a mongrel out, others have been doing their best to force it in, and get it THE LANGSHAN FOWL. S3 accepted as pure. All acquainted with the breed are aware that the Langshan never sports yellow legs. Yet half-bred Cochins with yellow legs, entered in the " Variety " class as Langshans, have been endowed with prizes ; the same type of bird has also in an open Langshan class carried off the club cup, and when Langshan breeders have written to remonstrate, pointing out the rule that appears in the schedules of every show — namely, " that birds entered under a wrong name will be excluded from competition " —they have been told that there was nothing amiss in the award, that the Langshan was a bad Cochin, and they were advised to breed for Cochin points. The Langshan is now so widely diffused, and has club members in almost every locality — rule the 13th has, therefore, wisely and naturally been done away with — but the days of which we are writing caused it to be a necessity as far as we- were allowed to keep it, and we think the stand made against the breaking of this rule has helped to keep the Langshan to some extent pure. To show the up-hill work we had at this time, we quote from two local papers sent us from Birmingham after the Show of 1879. One reported the Langshan to be a "capital layer, but a bad table-fowl ; " another that one of the judges had been heard to say " that the Langshan was a good table-fowl, but fit for nothing else." These witnesses, who were " not agreed," made out a good case for the Langshan on the whole, but the public, who probably only saw one side of the question, would naturally be misled. We give an extract from a report of the Show that appeared in one of the Birmingham papers of that year : — " In Blacks the Cochins showed a decline in number. Some fine birds were shown, but as a whole so much commendation cannot be given as in former years. Next come the Langshans, which are less distinguishable from their black neighbours than in former years, and it would appear as if they were breeding out of their dis- tinctiveness, which, although always slight, is now decidedly slighter. The second prizes are the gift of a ' few breeders,' and if the Langshans are to reach popularity there can be little doubt that some such special action on the part of their admirers will have to be continued." We reproduce this extract solely because it shows the char- 54 THE LANGSHAN FOWL. acter of the opposition with which we had to contend. The writer of these remarks must have been entirely ignorant of his subject or have known that his statements were utterly untrue, that he was in fact reversing the order of things. In the autumn of 1883 a fortunate circumstance brought the Langshan to the special notice of Mr. Harrison Weir. He told us at that time even from the view he had obtained of the Langshan through the wires of the show-pen, he had felt convinced that it was not a Cochin, but having other interests and objects of thought, he had not considered it worth while to throw himself into the fray, but when he understood the nature of the conflict he at once decided to draw a lance in the service of the breed Mr. Weir's testimony is of high value for he has from his earliest days been an ardent Ornithologist and Fancier, besides being an animal painter of no mean repute. The children of this and succeeding generations will have good cause to remember the genial artist, whose drawings have added such a charm to their story books, and taught them at the same time the love of the beautiful and the love for dumb animals. We feel sure Mr. Weit took up arms for the Langshan at first out of real benevolence ; he saw the breed was being sorely persecuted and came to the rescue. Mr. Weir's memory carries him back to the time when the Cochin first appeared on our shores and therefore he has had practical experience of what he writes. Moreover, as long ago as 1852, he took the portraits of a pair of Black Cochins and can speak from his own knowledge of what they were like, and he says they were totally unlike the Langshan. We can truly add that had they resembled the Langshan they could not have been Cochins, The following letter was published in the " Journal of Horti- culture " of 1879, and is from the pen of Doctor Gabb, of Bewdly. Being an amateur of long standing he well remembers the intro- duction of the early Cochins ; this combined with his ornithological knowledge gives his opinions some weight. THE LANGSHAN FOWL. 55 "Langshans." "As you were good enough to allow a few observations of mine on Langshans to appear in a recent number of your Journal, and as from the communications I have received these appear to have excited some interest, a few remarks on the same subject, suggested by a visit to the late Birmingham Poultry Show, may not be un- interesting. " At the late Poultry Show at Birmingham it appeared to me that, however unwilling the breeders of Black Cochins may be to allow that there is any difference except in name between their birds and Langshans, most of the exhibitors of Black Cochins clearly manifested their appreciation of the qualities of the Langshan by showing birds only with a considerable amount of the blood of the latter in their Cochin veins. I could only find two cncks in the Black Cochin class with any approach to a just claim to purity of breed as Cochins, and these two were, in my opinion, not free from an infusion of Langshan blood. AU the others in the class which I had time to examine were at lea-st half-bred Langshans. Their owners may or may not have been aware of their true breed, but the facts are as I have stated them. This may be called a cool assertion, but I write about that of which I have a practical knowledge. "A Black Cochin till recently differed scarcely at all, except in colour, from any other Cochin. It had the same short, yellow, profusely feathered legs, the yellow in the dark varieties being greenish-yellow shading into black instead of the bright yellow of the lighter-coloured birds, yellow being the essential basis of the colour of the legs of every variety of Cochin. " It is a remarkable fact that since the introduction of the Langshan the Cochin type in Black Cochins has rapidly diminished. At the Show in 1877 it prevailed at Bir- mingham much more than it did in 1878, a mixture of the breeds by crossing having evidently been extensively carried out — not by the breeders of Langshans, they know too well the quality of their true-bred birds to allow the degrading influence of such a cross in their yards. Among the Langshans at Birmingham in the late show there was one pen that struck me by its remarkable Cochiny appearance, and there was one exhibitor who showed both Black Cochins and Langshans, as he severally called his birds. The same exhibitor did exactly the same thing in 1877, no doubt in good faith believing the two breeds to be essentially identical, as anybody who has unwittingly got hold of half-bred birds may easily persuade himself. I quite believe the Black Cochin has been greatly improved by crossing with the Langshan as from the dis- tinguishing characters of the two birds it would necessarily be. •' In comparing the two breeds, it is n ot only as large, handsome, hardy fowls and good layers, but as table fowls with delicately white and tender skins, breasts well covered with choicest meat, legs and thighs in subordinate proportion when dressed such as to delight equally the farmer's wife who is proud of her poultry, and the house- keeper upon whose table it is destined to appear, that the Langshan will find a place ^ place which, as a test of quality, no Cochin will ever approach. " As, according to certain critics, the purity of the breed of the Langshan is not now disputed ; as he is no longer considered a cross-bred bird, a Cochin with something else ; as he is allowed to have certain valuable qualities, though undistinguishable ; and as he is still accused of being only a Black Cochin with legs as long as a Malay's, it m ay be well briefly to contrast the more obvious characteristics of the two breeds side by side : — 56 THE- LANGSHAN FOWL.. " The Cochin. " Comb and wattles small ; in the hen very small, scarcely rising above the feathers of the head ; always single, erect. " Fluff abundant ; the tip of the tail feathers just appearing through it. " Legs large, short, profusely feathered, always yellow, but rarely long and lightly feathered. " Pectoral muscles small, not suffi- ciently developed to enable the bird to fly. " Thighs very large, and dispropor- tionate to all other parts i "Breastbone short, with but little meat upon it, " Narrow across the shoulders. "The hen a determined sitter, very difficult to prevent. "The skin of the Cochin is yellow, coarse, and jaundiced looking when dressed for the table. " The skin of the Cochin, in fact, like the skin of the Negro, indicates a tropical or sub-tropical region as its home ; while the skin of the Langshan, like the skin of the Saxon, a£fords [evidence of a temperate or cold climate as being its natural habitation. " In conclusion, if such marks of difference as above mentioned are not enough to establish a distinctness of breed, there can be no distinction between a Malay and a Game or a Bantam and a barndoor fowl. Still there are other distinctions which will ultimately appear in public. Everybody knows that Dorkings are single-combed and rose-combed, if not occasionally tufted ; so are Langshans in their own country, as shown by the occasional importation of such birds by Mr. Croad. I have some pure-bred rose-combed Langshans, but I never saw a pure-bred rose-combed Cochin, nor do I believe that anybody else ever did.'' We never possessed but the one rose-combed cock ; he came in an importation sent us in 1877 ; he was a very handsome bird, and had- all the appearance of being pure. He reached us in excellent condition, and had evidently reigned supreme during the voyage, for whilst the other cocks (who were younger) looked cowed and dejected, he stepped out of hi^ travelling cage as though he had just come off a pleasure trip. Finding this bird " The Langshan. " Comb and wattles large and very brilliant ; in the hen comb sometimes erect, sometimes falling over to one side as the Black Spanish hen's ; single, double, or rose-combed. " Fluff but little, the tail feathers stand- ing several inches out of it. "Legs neither large or short, not too long or profusely feathered, sometimes featherless, never yellow, rarely short, and rarely freely feathered. " Pectoral muscles well developed, enabling the bird to fly. " Thighs not too large, nor dispropor- tionate to other parts. " Breastbone long, with abundance of meat upon it. " Very broad across the shoulders. "The hen a very light sitter, very easily prevented. " The skin of the Langshan is deli- cately white and fine, and very tender, easily torn in plucking. THE' LANGSHAN FOWL 57 was unaccompanied by any hens of the same variety we gave him separate quarters, and this we believe caused him to die of grief shortly after. We set some of the eggs laid by the straight combed hens that came with this importation, but as it was late in the season the chickens got run down by the older broods.. Two sittings of eggs, however, that we sent to Dr. Gabb and Mr. Hamilton produced some rose-combed birds, and these the former succeeded in mating. We afterwards discovered this importation on its arrival from Langshan, whilst waiting for a ship that would accept such a cargo, had been entertained in the yard of a gentleman who kept various breeds of poultry. We have frequently asked for more rose-combed birds, but none have been forthcoming. This cock was a supernumerary and we have thought it might probably have originated in a cross with the Black Hamburgh. Knowing well the prepotency of the Lang- shan, when associated with other breeds, we feel sure it might have had all the appearance of purity and yet have been only the result of a first-cross We believe in a cross of this nature the Langshan would soon knock out the Hamburgh element, and if the rose-comb could be retained a very pretty variety would thus be formed. We ourselves have had too much hard fighting to venture on any experiments. Although we now know that tufts are accidental variations, found in almost all the feathered family, we have looked on our tufted Langshans as a variety capable of fixing, for this reason. Our tufted hens, although mated with an erect combed cock, have frequently given us tufted chickens, but the erect-combed hens have never produced this variety — the tufts in all the Langshans we have possessed have been so slight that when compared with its supposed cogener, the Houdan, one is puzzled to know to what branch of the family tree the latter could be said to belong. The Langshan never sports five claws. It might possibly strike our readers as extraordinary that during all these years so little information in detail has been elicited" from our China correspondents ; but to those who are poultry 58 THE LANGSHAN FOWL. fanciers the degrees of poultry lore attained by those who are not is something marvellous. We have had visitors to our yard accompanied by friends, who on seeing a cock with a fine flow- ing tail have exclaimed, " what a beautiful hen," and even a vociferous crow has scarcely set them right. We should add that when we discovered that the eggs sent to Dr. Gabb and Mr. Hamilton had been influenced by the rose-combed cock we replaced them by others. The Langshan was, from the first, well received in Scotland. Mr. Bennett, of Elgin, has exhibited some very beautiful specimens in the English Shows. We sent his first Langshan eggs to Mr. Lewis P. Muirhead, Helensburgh, in the summer of 1876, and he has been constant to the breed ever since. We give the following extract from an article that appeared in the ^'Northern Agriculturist" oi K'^xW i8th, 1882 : — " At a time when so much is being said, and written about the crossing of strains, the following experiment carried out by Mr. Lewi; P. Muirhead, Helensburgh, to determine the number of generations one strain through the male would take to obliterate the characteristics of the female of another strain, is peculiarly interesting to all breeders of stock . — The experimenter made use of poultry on account of the ease with which they are manipulated and the comparative shortness of time required to follow out a result to many generations. The female chosen was one of two La Fleche hens with which the late Mr. Dring some years ago won many prizes in England. The type of comb shaped like a pair of horns, white ear lobe, and white egg being strongly characteristic. The males were reared from eggs laid by hens imported from Langshan, North China, by the late Major Croad, Worthing. Uprighl serrated comb black eyes, feathered legs, red ear lobes, and pink buff eggs, both breeds celebrated for their sheeny black plumage. First Cross. — Hen, Hamburgh in type, rose comb, white ear lobes, bare legs, amber iris to eye, egg white ! Second Cross. — Hen, leggy, and awkward looking; double comb, lobes white, and patchy, amber of eye rather darker, egg cream colour. Third Cross. — Hen Langshan in appearance, comb waxy, eye darker, egg pale buff. Fourth Cross. — Hen quite Langshan, full bodied, pink toed, feather legged, dark eyed, egg buff. Fifth Cross. — Hen a perfect Langshan, full bodied, pink toed, feather legged black eyed, upright comb, red ear lobes, egg piak-buff. The chicks were almost black in the first and second cross ; light canary colour, with the black velvet jacket of the Langshan in the last three. The gradual alteration of the colour of the egg, from the pure white of the La Fleche to the curiously characteristic pink-buff of the Langshan in five generations is specially worthy of note.'' THE LANGSHAN FOWL, 59 Mr. Hamilton gives it as his opinion that it would have taken twice as many generations for Mr. Muirhead to carry out his experiments had there not been a pre-existing relationship between the Langshan and the French breeds. Dr. Gabb writing later on in " Poultry " May 14th, 1886, expresses it as his opinion that the Langshan and Royal Indian Game, or Aseel, are the two most distinct breeds of poultry he has ever been able to examine. Without feeling competent to give a decided opinion on the matter of the French breed, we greatly incline to the belief that the distinctive nature of the Langshan may have influenced these experiments. Those who accepted the Langshan in 1876 have as a rule been most constant to the breed. We sent M. Amed^e P. Pichot a cockerel last year, when he told us his interest in the Langshan remained unabated. No breed has certainly ever suffered more from the virulent attacks of open enemies, and the treachery of seeming allies, but it has also received the most generous countenance and support from the most thoroughly disinterested friends. As an instance, we would adduce the formation of the club which we may look upon as Jhe outcome of the abuse Showered upon the Langshan after its appearance at the Palace in October, 1876. On reading the appeal in the " Country " in the following December, we were reminded that the writer had applied to us for eggs during the previous summer but this was the- first inti- mation we had received of his approval. As we before stated, this gentleman never exhibited, neither did he we believe ever sell a bird or an egg. He drew up the rules for the first Langshan Club, procured the books for our use, put us in the way of tran- sacting its business, and then retired from the scene altogether. Another constant friend and most munificent patron of the breed is Mr. H. Morrell, of Headington Hill Hall, Oxford ; he it was, we believe, who originated the classes for Langshans at the Bath and West of England Show, and we know he for many years sustained them by giving all the prizes, this at a time when the Langshan was so put to the " ban " that its very name was only ■6o THE LANGSHAN FOWL. a signal for contempt and abuse. Besides the Bath and West ot England prizes Mr. Morrell has given unnumbered cups and prizes, as many a local show can testify. The Langshan Club is now a flourishing institution, and the breed has attained to popularity everywhere — even those who were its opponents being converted into ardent admirers. We feel sure its generous patron will value this as the best return for his long continued and most disinterested help. The admirers of the breed were for some time termed a " band of enthusiasts " by way of reproach by its opponents, and, in- deed, there seemed some colour for this, for no breed we have heard of has ever created so great an enthusiasm ; no doubt much of this was due to the opposition, but a great deal must be allowed to the breed itself. Man/ years ago M. V. La Perre de Roo opened a correspondence with us in order to hear more about the birds that had so charmed his fancy ; he told us one of his great delights, when residing in Paris, was to visit the Jardin D'Acclimatation and watch the Langshans, he considered them one of the most beautiful and interesting breeds he had ever in his vast experience come across, and no sooner had he begun to rest from his travels and settled down at his country residence, Chateau Villiers, than he sent to us for a supply of Langshans. Mr. C. W. Gedney, to whose generous help we were so greatly indebted for the introduction of the Langshan to the notice of the poultry world, determined not to sell a bird or egg in this country until the breed had become thoroughly established, lest his advocacy should be laid to the charge of " interested motiveg." This of course did not prevent his sending elsewhere, and he it was who shipped the first Langshans to America, to a Mr. Samuels, a gentleman thoroughly capable of forming an opinion on their merits, and he at once pronounced them to be a pure breed, and distinct from the Cochin. Birds of our strain, but not from our yard, subsequently appeared in other parts of America and Canada. They were invariably well received by those to whom they had been consigned ; but like the Langshan irj THE LANGSHAN FOWL. 6l England they met with most determined opposition from a section of the " Fancy." An American Poultry "Monthly" in 1879 contained a letter signed G.P.B. which we were told was from the pen of Mr. G.P. Burnham the well known American " fancier," we subjoin an extract : — " As winter layers I have never seen their equals. My Langshans moult early, andi commence to lay in November. All winter long, through the spring following, andi into mid-summer, they continue to follow up their laying vigorously. They are easily broken up when they incline to sit, and go about their work again vigilantly. For the table their meat is most excellent. I have bred of these chicken a large surplus of cockerels thus far, which have made superior broilers and young roasting fowls when used in my family. The chickens are very hardy with us ; of seventy hatched last year, and so far nearly one hundred got out this season, I have not lost one bird, nor have I ever seen a sign of any disease among them. They come brood after brood alike, too, and show no falling off in general good quality as yet. I con- sider the Langshan a valuable addition to our breeds of poultry in this country, and I have no doubt they will come to be very popular as they become better known. When bred from pure stock they always prove highly satisfactory in every particular — G.P.B. also makes mention of a letter received by him from the United States Consul Hang-kow, who describes this breed as among the best esteemed in China.. He says, ' they are brought from the Langshan district ; ' he adds, ' there is a clear white variety, as well as black, bred in the same district. They are very beautiful but scarce." One or two of our correspondents have mentioned this variety they are supposed to have been " sports " from the black. It was in 1 879 we sent the first Langshan eggs to the late Mrs. R. W. Sargant who, always an ardent fancier, became a most enthusiastic admirer of the Langshan. Through a long and trying illness her poultry continued to give her solace, and amusement, and Captain Sargant told us only the day before her death she dictated a long letter for him to send to the poultry journals in defence of her " black beauties." Captain Sargant is himself a ksen fancier, and it will give our readers some idea of the large way in which poultry keeping is carried on in the United States to hear that he has 15 incubators, and over three miles of poultry fencing, at the present moment lying idle, wait- ing for the time when rest from active duties will enable him ta resume his old hobby. 62 THE LANGSHAN FOWL To the letter which contained this information he adds " I still jkeep a few Langshans for it is a hreed that wears well." In 1886 American Langshan breeders formed themselves into .a club. As in England it was instituted to keep the breed pure. At the time of its formation a printed protest was circulated, of -which a copy was sent to us for perusal. We transcribe it, verbatim : — PROTEST. A. A. Halliday, Secretary American Langshan Club, Bellows Falls, Vt. Dear Sir, — As the prime object of the American Langshan Club is to preserve and [protect the Langshan fowl from any admixture of other than pure Langshan blood, and having satisfied ourselves beyond a reasonable doubt that what is known as the Black Diamond strain of Langshans are but a cross of Langshan and Black . Cochin, possibly filtered down through several generations. We do hereby, as members of the American Langshan Club, enter our protest • against any person being admitted to the American Langshan Club whose birds are , in the least tainted with the Black Diamond strain of Langshans. In making this protest we do not object to individuals, but fowls, for we know full well that many honourable persons are breeding the Black Diamonds under the erroneous impression -that they are pure Langshans. We however, candidly believe otherwise, and there- fore respectfully call your attention to this protest, and ask that you will investigate and decide as promptly as may be what constitute pure Langshan fowls, and if our statement is correct that you, under orders of our worthy President, will for ever debar such breeders from entering our Club, while breeding such strains, or enjoying any of the privileges of the Club. Subscribed at Buckley, Iroquois Co., 111. this twenty-fifth day of May, eighteen hundred and eighty-seven. W. L. R. JOHNSON, H. FORRESTER. About this time Canon Forrester wrote to the " American Fanciers' Gazette" giving the raison d'etre and the objects of the American Club. He says : — "As things are now the country is being flooded with a mongrel of no certain _ character, under the name of Langshan, and unless something is done to distinguish between the mongrel fraud and the pure stock the breed will inevitably fall into dis- repute, and disappear from public view. That it will be lost entirely there is no fear, so long as there shall remain a few breeders who know and appreciate the breed. The public cannot afiord to lose the Langshan, for it is the best general fowl in existence. That the standard and the judges are not sufficient for the preservation of the breed in purity is only too evident, and that so-called fanciers are not so persevering is still more manifest. I believe there are some of the latter, however, who are trying to do it, and to these I now propose the organisation of a Langshan Club for the carrying out of this purpose. Let us have a Club, start a pedigree book, discard all doubtful stock, register what is known to be untainted with foreign blood, THE LANGSHAN FOWL. 6$ and sell nothing without guarantee. For my part I have made up my mind to buy no more Langshans except from breeders who will give pedigree and guarantee to my satisfaction. I could name some very prominent breeders of so-called Langshans whose stock in my hands has given unmistakable evidence of being impure. Let us have a club." We were sorry to learn that the strain to which the objection in the protest was made had emanated from the yards of successful English breeders. We have never heard how the protest was received, or whether its admonitions really passed into law. Mr. Francis Mortimer, of Pottsville, Pensylvania, was elected President of the newly-formed club, and to show us how earnest he was in prosecuting its work he told us he had travelled hundreds of miles through many of the States of America, in order to secure for it a firm and lasting basis, Mr Mortimer tells us he has succeeded in procuring some pure White Langshans. The Langshan, from what we hear, is more liable to sport white feathers in America than with us in England — he did not tell us whether these birds were from ■" sports " in America, or imported from the Langshan district The Langshan has for a considerable time been very popular all along the Pacific Coast. In a letter we received from Mr. Kesling, the editor of the " California Cacklerl' he writes : — " Regarding my Langshans ; allow me to give a history of my efforts to get possession of fowls that I was satisfied had no foreign blood in them, After much enquiry, and trouble in 1886 I received through an American resident in Shanghai, six cocks and six hens. They proved hardy, prolific, and withal thoroughly Langshan in their habits and actions. February, 1888, I received among a nice lot of Black Langshans, one white hen, she was of good size and vigorous, and bore the Langshan ~ •characteristics in an eminent degree. Of course I had no use for her without a cock, and sold her to a neighbour who had some white " sports " she is without doubt the first pure white Langshan ever imported, she made a good record of laying, produc- ing forty-two eggs in forty-seven days. Being more than ever convinced of the superiority of Langshans of pure blood over the much mixed fowls generally bred, I urged my friend to obtain for me more fowls of both varieties. By renewed eHorts and the co-operation of a Jesuit priest who was engaged in missionary work in the Langshan district, I received, 26th February, 1889 (the day before yesterday), a fine lot of Black Langshans, and with them two more Whites. I should tell you my White Langshans have light horn-coloured beaks, slaty-blue shanks, with abundant pink colour on bottom of feet, and running up the shanks. In plumage they are solid •white, otherwise they do not differ from the Black Langshans.'' 64 THE LANGSHAN FOWL The account given by Mr. Mortimer of his white Langshans agreed exactly with that given by Mr. Kesling of the ones in his possession. The fact that some naval officers engaged in an exploring expedition had come across some Langshans elsewhere, and had afterwards met with them at Hangkow, and that another naval officer had brought some from Chusan where he had seen them in considerable numbers, led us at first to the belief that the breed was ^yidely distributed, and the name a mere localism. But on sending our book to China, our friends there told us that in this matter we had been mistaken, that the Langshan was strictly limited to the district of that name and only found in other parts of China by importation. One gentleman with whom we opened a correspondence at that time, told us he had been in the Imperial Service of China ever since 1859, that he had travelled thousands ot miles in the interior in all directions, and had never come across the Langshan in any other part except by importation. He told us Chinese names usually bore a signi- fication, and that Lang should be translated two and Shan hills. He added that he and other residents in North China, well remembered the introduction of the Langshan to the European community, its date was fixed by the placing of a Lightship outside the Langshan crossings in 1862, the officers and crew of the Lightship landing to explore and forage, came across this fine breed of fowls, and as occasion offered would send presents of eggs and birds to their friends in Shanghai. Mr. Keele before quoted who is another independent source of information had in the meantime narrated the circumstance of the lightship and of the Langshan being confined to the district to a lady correspondent in England, these facts were therefore generally known. But the order of things changes. A year or two since a correspon- dent well informed on the subject wrote : — " The Lightship was stationed off the Langshan crossings in 1862, but it has long since been superseded by a double line of buoys. Steameis have frequently come to grief on these shoals, but I have never heard of but one total loss. The Langshan. THE LANGSHAN FOWL. 65 crossing is about Jo miles above Woosung, the entrance of the Hwampoo river, a tributary of the Yang-tze." This correspondent tells us he visited Soochow, or Soochoo, a city situated a few miles from Langshan. He writes ; — " It was for some time the stronghold of the rebels, and was stormed by Gordon in 1863. I was there during the latter part of 1864. I did not find many ruins, and the city is better built and the streets wider than the run of Chinese cities. I was in one large house or palace built all on one floor, extending over a great area — ^it reminded me of the pattern on the old • willow ' plates, the bridge, the boat, doves flying about made quite a picture (the doves on the willow plate are the souls of the lovers) — there were a lot of dismounted guns about the place, they may have been there for fifty years. The Chinese do not take care of their guns, they leave a good number to Joss, who sometimes sells them I " Anyone who studies the chart of the Langshan crossing and district will be at no loss to discover why, before the placing of the lightship, Langshan was a sort of " terra incognita " to the European inhabitants of Shanghai, although the distance by that route is comparatively insignificant. There is another long and circuitous route of some hundred miles, and we think it probable that stray Langshans may have been brought down to the coast by this route even in. the olden times, but that Cochins were ever taken up to the district is in the highest degree improbable. Many of the Buddhist monasteries occupy sites of enchanting scenery. In a work in our possession, " Illustrations of China, and Its People," two or three of these edifices look as if they had been niched into the mountain side by luxuriant ferns and trail- ing plants of great beauty. These buildings are not as a rule placed amongst the busy haunts of men, but in isolated far away spots. The Temple at Langshan is of Pagoda form, a style of sacred edifice common to some parts o^ China. These Pagodas are supposed to have been originally erected as beacons and watch towers, as well as for the purposes of their religious " culte." This theory is said to be corroborated by the circum- stance that Pagodas are much more numerous in those parts that have been subject to invasion, and whose history from the earliest times has been a record of warfare and strife. Langshan was close to if not quite within range of the Tapiang rebellion, F 66 THE 1,ANGSHAN FOWL. wfhich our hero Gordon so effectually quelled. We had hoped to present our readers with an illustration of the Langshan Pagoda, but " our artist," hearing he was to appear in print, at the last moment withdrew from his promise. There can be no doubt that the Langshan is a bird whose origin dates very far back. When asked how they came there, the Chinese invariably reply they " do not know ; they were always there," and the bird itself bears out this theory entirely, for as Dr. Gabb remarked " It is one of the purest and most distinct of breeds." The priests at the Temple look upon them as " Joss," or sacred birds. At one time we know they made great difficulty in parting with any specimen. When they are in full moult is the outer " barbarians " best time, for they are then considered unfit to offer to their gods. As the Chinese follow the heathen custom of feasting on the m^ats offered in sacrifice ; a Langshan in good condition would no doubt be a plea for themselves. We are not prepared to affirm that the Langshan is the only bird used as a votive offering by the dwellers in the " flowery land," for we have noted in the China papers sent us, the mention of a dead cock having been placed by the slayer beside his victim ; no doubt as a propitiatory offering to Joss. As the Chinese are believers in the transmigration of souls, they probably consider the dead bird will work an " evolutionary " change of a very high order, although not according to the rules of modern philosophy. A good story told by Le Comte of the deception practised by the Bonzes or Buddhists Monks of his time, makes one doubt whether they could actually deceive themselves. We give the story as it bears repeating. " Two Bodzes seeing one day in a rich farmer's yard two or three large ducks, fell on their faces before the door, and sighed, and wept grievously. The good woman seeing them out of her chamber window, came down to see what was the occasion of their tears. We know said they, that the