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Show 2 3 0 MR. J. T. CUNNINGHAM ON [Mar. 17, too, has longer tail-feathers than an ordinary hen, sometimes as long as 8 inches. One, or at most, two hens are allowed to each breeding-cock. The latter's tail-feathers are cut to allow of his walking about freely. He lives a little longer than the others which must be kept shut up; but all are hardy, bearing both heat and cold. The ordinary number of long tail-feathers is 15 or 16, some cocks have as many as 24. The tail-feathers must not be wound up, as people ignorantly do away from Kochi, but must always be allowed to hang free; for which reason the cocks are kept in high, narrow cages, quite dark except at the top, for light at the bottom would attract them. When the tail-feathers become too long and touch the ground in the cage, a bamboo is put a little way back so as to form an arch and make more distance. The birds sit all day on a flat perch 3 inches wide, and are only taken out once in two or three days and allowed to walk about for half an hour or so, a man holding the tail all the while to prevent its getting torn or soiled. The high, narrow cages may be made of any wood ; they are 6^ feet high, 3 feet deep, and 6 inches wide. The wonderful feathers both on tail and body come from quills much stouter than any possessed by ordinary fowls. The price in Kochi was 15 dollars for a cock with tail under 10 feet, 25 dollars over that length. There is absolutely no artificial method of making the feathers grow. All is done by selection. Any failure is due to not having a hen or parents of the proper breed. Also one must know how to treat the birds. At Kobe in November 1898 Mr. Chamberlain saw three specimens, one with tail-feathers 13| feet long. He also saw a splendid white tail 10^ feet long, which had been pulled out from a white bird owing to its falling off its perch and fluttering about. The bird was five years old, and the feathers were growing again. The fancier said that the feathers in young birds grow about 4 inches a month, in older birds more, up to 7 inches a month. Two photographs are given with the paper, but no reference to them is made in the text. The tails are very long, but there are no long feathers from the shoulders, only tail- and saddle- or rump-hackles. It is evident that Mr. Chamberlin, although his observations are of considerable value, was not an experienced naturalist, and that he is simply reporting what he was told. He says nothing about the combs of the fowls he saw. With regard to his assertions about selection as the sole means by which the breed has been produced, it is to be noted that he is evidently referring in the case of the Haku chiefly or entirely to colour. The Haku is a white variety, and Mr. Rice, above mentioned, also has a strain of this colour. Nearly all domesticated birds and animals vary in colour, and nothing is easier than to separate a white variety in fowls, horses, pigeons, dogs, &c. These fowls, like others, vary in colour; and the question before us now is not the separation of |
