The Hamburgs are most prolific layers naturally, without over-stimulating feeding, surpassing all others in the number of their eggs, and deserve their popular name of "everlasting layers." Their eggs are white, and do not weigh more than 1½ ounce to 1¾ ounce each; and the hens are known to average 240 eggs yearly. Not being large eaters, they are very profitable fowls to keep. The eggs of the Golden-spangled are the largest, and it is the hardiest variety, but the Pencilled lay more. The Black variety produces large eggs, and lays a greater number than any known breed.
They very seldom show any desire to sit except when they have a free woodland range, for even if free it must be wild to induce any desire to perpetuate the species, and they never sit if confined to a yard. The chickens should not be hatched earlier than May, but in the South of England they will do very well if hatched by a Cochin-China hen at the beginning of March. They are small birds for table, but of excellent quality.
Hamburgs do not bear confinement well, and will not thrive without a good run; a grass field is the best. Being small and light, even a ten-feet fence will not keep them within a small run. They may indeed be kept in a shed, but the number must be very few in proportion to its size, and they must be kept dry and scrupulously clean. They are excellent guards in the country, for if disturbed in their roosting-place they will make a great noise. The breed has improved in this country, and British bred fowls are much stronger than the imported birds.
White-crested Black. Golden and Silver-spangled.
POLISH.
CHAPTER XVII.
POLANDS.
This breed might with good reason be divided into more families, but it is usual to rank as Polands all fowls with their chief distinguishing characteristic, a full, large, round, compact tuft on the head. The breed "is quite unknown in Poland, and takes its name," says Mr. Dickson, "from some resemblance having been fancied between its tufted crest and the square-spreading crown of the feathered caps worn by the Polish soldiers." It is much esteemed in Egypt, and equally abundant at the Cape of Good Hope, where their legs are feathered. Some travellers assert that the Mexican poultry are crested, and that what are called Poland fowls are natives of either Mexico or South America; but others believe that they are natives of the East, and that they, as well as all the other fowls on the Continent of America, have been introduced from the Old World.