



Produced by Mary Glenn Krause, MFR, ellinora and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive)






                            Transcriber Note

 ● Obvious typos and punctuation errors corrected.
 ● Inconsistencies in hyphenation retained.
 ● Description of illustrations without captions has been added.
 ● Italics are indicated by underscores surrounding the _italic text_.
 ● Small capitals have been converted to ALL CAPS.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Illustration: Hamburgs]

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                                  THE

                         Book of the Hamburgs,

                            A BRIEF TREATISE

                                UPON THE

                     MATING, REARING AND MANAGEMENT

                                 OF THE

                    DIFFERENT VARIETIES OF HAMBURGS.

                           BY L. FRANK BAUM.


                            HARTFORD, CONN.:
                       H. H. STODDARD, PUBLISHER.
                                 1886.

------------------------------------------------------------------------




          Copyright, 1886, by H. H. STODDARD, Hartford, Conn.

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                       The Book of the Hamburgs.


Long before what we now call “fancy fowls” were known or recognized (in
fact, long before the memory of any person now living), Hamburgs were
kept and bred to feather among the peasants of Yorkshire and Lancashire
in England, and by them exhibited at the small town and county fairs in
their neighborhood. Of course they were then known under different
names, the Blacks being called “Black Pheasant Fowls” and the Spangled
varieties “Lancashire Mooneys” and “Yorkshire Pheasants”; while such a
variety as the Penciled Hamburgs were either wholly unknown or else were
so little thought of that they have left no record of their origin, if,
indeed, they are natives of England at all.


                             EARLY HISTORY.

Mr. Wright, who has traced these fowls back still further, inclines to
the belief that at some period whereof we have no knowledge the Penciled
varieties formed a part of the Hamburg family, although our earliest
positive knowledge traces them to direct importations from Holland,
where they were brought in great numbers, and were originally known
under the names of “Dutch Everyday Layers” or “Dutch Everlasting
Layers.”

As such a thing as a black or spangled variety of this fowl was utterly
unknown in Holland, it is presumable that at some period the penciled
varieties were exported to Holland and there bred and cherished, while
they were allowed to run out or sink into insignificance in England. We
cling to this belief so tenaciously on account of the wonderful
similitude which marks the characteristics of the Hamburg family, in
spite of the fact that one branch came from Holland and the other is
emphatically English. These two branches, namely, the Penciled and the
Spangles and Blacks, resemble no other varieties of fowls in the
slightest degree, while their common characteristics are the absence of
the incubating instinct, clean, slender legs, neat rose combs, small,
round and white ear-lobes, and the light, but sweeping and graceful,
lines of form which are wholly their own and unapproachable by any other
breed of fowls, no matter how fine their symmetry. If this were not
enough to stamp them with certainty of having one origin, we mark the
fact that spangled chickens are frequently _penciled_ in their first
feathers; while, as they mature, the black spangles or moons are often
surmounted by a light tip beyond them, thus again approaching the
penciled character, while conversely it will be found that if penciled
birds be bred too dark the last bar has a strong tendency to become _too
wide_, thus approaching a _spangled_ character.

If we consider the utter want of interest with which poultry was
regarded in the earlier days, and the fact that no traditions of any
account relating to fowls have been handed down, we may be justified in
believing that these facts prove our conjectures in regard to the
original identity of these varieties to be correct. From whence their
common progenitor came, we can have no idea, but that they did have one
we strongly believe. It may have been that they came from the Blacks, as
that variety is thought to be the oldest, and a cross might have
resulted in the broken color, or possibly these Blacks having a number
of white feathers may have been bred together until a distinctly-marked
plumage had been obtained.

Bearing in mind, however, that Aldrovandus speaks of a fowl which
strongly resembles the penciled variety as _Gallina Turcica_,