still closely allied to those now living there. The colour of the yolk,
according to Ferguson, as well as of the shell, differs slightly in the
sub-breeds of the Game, and stands in some degree of correlation with
the colour of the plumage. I am also informed by Mr. Brent that dark
partridge-coloured Cochin hens lay darker coloured eggs than the other
Cochin sub-breeds. The flavour and richness of the egg certainly differ
in different breeds. The productiveness of the several breeds is very
different. Spanish, Polish, and Hamburgh hens have lost the incubating
instinct.

_Chickens._--As the young of almost all gallinaceous birds, even of the
black curassow and black grouse, whilst covered with down, are
longitudinally striped on the back,--of which character, when adult,
neither sex retains a trace,--it might have been expected that the
chickens of all our domestic fowls would have been similarly
striped.[399] This could, however, hardly have been expected, when the
adult plumage in both sexes has undergone so great a change as to be
wholly white or black. In white fowls of various breeds the chickens
are uniformly yellowish white, passing in the black-boned Silk fowl
into bright canary-yellow. This is also generally the case with the
chickens of white Cochins, but I hear from Mr. Zurhost that they are
sometimes of a buff or oak colour, and that all those of this latter
colour, which were watched, turned out males. The chickens of buff
Cochins are of a golden-yellow, easily distinguishable from the paler
tint of the white Cochins, and are often longitudinally streaked with
dark shades: the chickens of silver-cinnamon Cochins are almost always
of a buff colour. The chickens of the white Game and white Dorking
breeds, when held in particular lights, sometimes exhibit (on the
authority of Mr. Brent) faint traces of longitudinal stripes. Fowls
which are entirely black, namely Spanish, black Game, black Polish, and
black Bantams, display a new character, for their chickens have their
breasts and throats more or less white, with sometimes a little white
elsewhere. Spanish chickens also, occasionally (Brent), have, where the
down was white, their first true feathers tipped for a time with white.
The primordially striped character is retained by the chickens of most
of the Game sub-breeds (B