July 8, 1980

Dear Mr Plant,

I am returning to you herewith the technical papers on the Pekin Bantam along with a comment from me to be incorporated in these papers.

You can feel free to use the illustrations taken from our standard and it would be appreciated that you give credit to the ABA for their use. Our first standard was copyrighted but the present one is not because we have found that here in the USA, that the description of an animal cannot be copyrighted.

It appears to me and some other that I have consulted that you have pretty much followed the British description of the Pekin Bantam. We have concluded that the Pekin is very closely comparable with our Cochin Bantam.

I have prepared shape and color descriptions of the Pekin Bantam formulated in the manner that would be acceptable for inclusion in our standard. There are minor differences in this material between your Pekin and our Cochin which the average person reading it would not pick up without comparing the two texts. I did use your language where possible.

We cannot accept such descriptions as:

    1. varying number of serrations in the comb of the male and female

    2. differences in eye color

    3. shape of female being the same as the male except for sexual differences

    4. either/or descriptions

    5. lack of detail in the partridge color descriptions

It is very hard for me to understand why you do not describe shape of male and female in all parts of the body. This also applies to color descriptions of other than solid color patterns.

How does a judge, in the showroom make a determination on which is the best specimen when one bird has a three point comb and another bird of equal characteristics has a five point comb? What does he/she do when there are three specimens of equal merit and each of the three birds has different eye color?

With no wing description in detail, how does the judge determine whether the wing meets the standard requirement in it’s five sub-divisions? Is it carried too high or too low, is it too large or too small, does he handle the bird by spreading out the wing on each side of the body to see if there are any defects and observe the length and width of the primaries and secondaries; in multicolored birds are they properly marked? A judge in Canada or the United States would not be called back for a second assignment if he did not pay attention to the details set forth in our standard.

I hope you will not feel that you have to use my suggestions for your standard but this is the way it will need to be written to get it into our fifth edition. Of course if I have made any errors they should be corrected so I would like to hear from you on this forthwith for I want to send it to Jeffrey at an early date.

When you get your illustrations made, I would need two approximately 3” x 5” photographs for use in printing.

In our standard, we have general defects and disqualifications which apply to all breeds and color patterns, hence they are omitted in my material. In feather legged breeds here in the USA and Canada, we are finding an increasing number of specimens in the show room that have only a stub of one joint on both of the outer toes, hence the disqualification. It has been watched out for in feather legged breeds.

THE FOLLOWING ARE MY COMMENTS
FOR INSERTION IN THE SPACE PROVIDED IN YOUR TECHNICAL PAPERS:

During the early to middle eighteen hundreds there Were a number of importations of the Pekin Bantam into the United States and Canada, They arrived principally through the ports of Boston, New York and Philadelphia,

The American Poultry Association published their first Standard of Excellence in 1874 in which appears the description of the PEKIN OR COCHIN BANTAM. In the 1894 standard, the word PEKIN was dropped form the title and they are listed as just plain COCHIN bantams and have remained so ever since. Large Cochins were very popular at that time, bred and shown in large numbers, the Pekin Bantam was considered to be the miniature counterpart of the large Cochins even though they appeared different in some respects.

At the turn of the century, in the early nineteen hundreds, the APA began their illustrations of ideal male and female specimens of each breed of large and small Bantam breeds. It was during this period that Maurice Wallace, a Canadian breeder of many poultry breeds, became an official APA judge and member of the Standard Committee along with Arthur O.Schilling, who was also an excellent judge and our finest poultry artist. Together, these two gentleman made many refinements in the standard requirements in the detailed form that still remains unchanged up to the present time. This applies to both shape and color pattern descriptions.

All breeds, both male and female, are separately described from comb to toes in a systematic manner, Breed varieties (color patterns) are also described for both male and female, from comb to toes. Exceptions to this are the solid color patterns such as black, blue, buff, exchequer, splash and white where the plumage is the same over the entire body.

When an ideal is set forth in this detail, the breeder, especially the beginner, plus the judge, cannot successfully go too far astray on just what is required in a given specimen.

Kindest regards,

PS - You will notice a description of both sharp and color of the Chinese Langshan appears on pgs 14 & 15 of the ABA Summer Quarterly. I have detected an error in the male shanks and toes description - it should be corrected to read: Shanks - medium length, small boned, outer side sparsely feathered, Spurs have been omitted, This should read: Spurs - set low. In other words shanks and toes and spurs have been erroneously combined. I will ask Mr Jeffrey for a correction in a subsequent issue.