Spanish in having red faces, the white ear-lobe and wattles being much less developed. They possess the prolificacy that the Spanish have lost, and are most abundant layers of large white-shelled eggs. They have, unfortunately for their utility, lately come into fashion as exhibition fowls, the object of the breeders being to develop the comb in the cocks to the largest possible size that it is capable of assuming whilst maintaining a plane surface and erect position.

Andalusians are another sub-variety of the Spanish or Mediterranean type. In this breed the colour is slaty blue, but the hens recently exhibited are characterized by a dark margin or edging to breast- and body-feathers.

Leghorns are of the same general type, but with white plumage and yellow legs (tarsi). Since their introduction into

this country from the United States, where the breed was first carefully bred, they have been crossed with ordinary Game, and brown, as distinguished from white, Leghorns are an established breed.

Under the name of Hamburgs, a misnomer which was first employed at one of the early Birmingham shows, several

distinct breeds of fowls are confounded together. The socalled Spangled Hamburgs (fig. 9, p. 315) originated apparently in England; small competitive shows, which were confined to the hens, having existed in the north for a long period. In this breed, of which there are two sub-varieties, named, according to the ground-colours, Gold- or Silver-spangled, the

feathers are tipped with a black mark, crescentic in some strains and circular in others. The birds were formerly called Mooneys or Pheasant-fowls. The combs are what are known as double, being flat on the head, peaked behind, and covered with small short sprigs. These breeds are of fair size and are non-sitters. A sub-variety with the plumage entirely black is known as the Black Hamburg.

Pencilled Hamburgs (fig. 10, p. 316) are unquestionably of continental origin; they are well known in France as Campines, and on their first introduction to this country were termed Dutch every-day layers. They are smaller than the spangled breeds, and are characterized by the feathers of the hens (and those of both sexes before the moult into adult plumage) being marked with several transverse bars of black on a white or bay ground.

The fowls known in this country as Polish and in France as Race de Padoue (fig. 11, p. 317) are characterized by large feathered crests, which appear to necessitate a peculiar development of the frontal bones for their support. This protuberance, which assumes a hemispherical form, is seldom completely ossified; it contains the anterior part of the

brain, which consequently is in a most abnormal form, approaching that of an hour-glass *.

The Polish breeds are of considerable antiquity, having been described by Aldrovandus and figured by the old Dutch painters. Beyond increasing the size of the crests and the

⚫ Cf. Tegetmeier on "Skulls of Polish Fowls," P. Z. S. 1856, p. 366.

regularity of the markings but little alteration has been since effected in these breeds. Figure 11 (p. 317) represents a cock of the white-crested black variety, in which the ordinary wattles are present in full size. In despite of the most persistent efforts of the breeders, the white crests of the birds

of this breed always show some black feathers over the beak; they are sometimes few in number, but are always present unless they have been removed by violence.

In the Spangled Polish (fig. 12, p. 318) each feather in the hens is banded by a black line on a white or bay ground,