As has been stated, people who do not understand the close relations of the different races of fowls, and do not know how quickly new types may be established by careful breeding, attach a great deal of importance to purity of breed. Hence, unscrupulous promoters of new breeds have often claimed that they received their original stock direct from some remote place or from some one who had long bred it pure. The idea of assigning the town of Bantam as the home of a true species of dwarf domestic fowl seems to have occurred to some one in England more than a hundred years ago, and to have been suggested because of the resemblance of the name of this Asiatic city to the English word "banty," the popular name for a dwarf fowl. It seems strange that such a fiction should be accepted as accounting for dwarf varieties of European races, but it was published by some of the early writers, used by lexicographers, and, having found a place in the dictionaries, was accepted as authoritative by the majority of later writers on poultry, even after some of the highest authorities had shown conclusively that this view of the origin of dwarf races was erroneous. [Illustration: Fig. 58. Black-Tailed White Japanese Bantams. (Photograph from Frederick W. Otte, Peekskill, New York)] [Illustration: Fig. 59. White Polish Bantam hen] [Illustration: Fig. 60. White Polish Bantam cock] No evidence of the existence of a dwarf race of fowls in Java has ever been produced. The Chinese and Japanese bantams did not come to Europe and America until long after the name "bantam" came into use. Dwarfs occur and undoubtedly have occurred frequently in every race of fowls. Usually they are unsymmetrical and weakly, and are called runts and put out of the way as soon as possible. But occasionally an undersized individual is finely formed, active, and hardy. By mating such a specimen with the smallest specimen of the other sex that can be found (even though the latter is much larger), and by repeated selection of the smallest specimens, a dwarf race may be obtained. It could be made, though not so rapidly, by systematic selection of the smallest ordinary specimens and by keeping the growing chicks so short of food that they would be stunted. The latter process, however, is so tedious that no one is likely to adopt it. Usually the idea of making a new variety of bantams does not occur to a breeder until he sees a good dwarf specimen of a race of which there is no dwarf variety. Then, if he undertakes to make such a variety, he is likely to use in the process both small specimens of large races and birds of long-established dwarf races. [Illustration: Fig. 61. Black Cochin Bantam pullet[6]] [Illustration: Fig. 62. Black Cochin Bantam cockerel[6]] [6] Photograph from Dr. J. N. MacRae, Galt, Ontario. [Illustration: Fig. 63. Rose-Comb Black Bantam cock] [Illustration: Fig. 64. Rose-Comb Black Bantam hen[7]] [7] Photograph from Grove Hill Poultry Yards, Waltham, Massachusetts.