_Primary Quills._--The long, strong quills, usually ten in number, forming the chief portion of each wing, and the means of flight. _Vulture-hocked._--Feathers growing from the thigh, and projecting backwards below the knee. [Illustration: Buff and White Cochin-China. Malay Cock. Light and Dark Brahmas.] CHAPTER X. COCHIN-CHINAS, OR SHANGHAES. Like many other fowls these possess a name which is incorrectly applied, for they came from Shanghae, not Cochin-China, where they were comparatively unknown. Mr. Fortune, who, from his travels in China, is well qualified to give an opinion, states that they are a Chinese breed, kept in great numbers at Shanghae; the real Cochin-China breed being small and elegantly shaped. But all attempts to give them the name of the port from which they were brought have failed, and the majority of breeders persist in calling them Cochins. In the United States both names are used, the feather-legged being called Shanghaes, and the clean-legged Cochins. The first Shanghae fowls brought to this country were sent from India to Her Majesty, which gave them great importance; and the eggs having been freely distributed by the kindness of the Queen and the Prince Consort, the breed was soon widely spread. They were first introduced into this country when the northern ports of China, including Shanghae, were thrown open to European vessels on the conclusion of the Chinese war in 1843; but some assign the date of their introduction from 1844 to 1847, and say that those called Cochins, exhibited by the Queen in 1843, were not the true breed, having been not only entirely without feathers on the shanks, but also altogether different in form and general characteristics. A pair which were sent by Her Majesty for exhibition at the Dublin Cattle Show in April, 1846, created such a sensation from their great size and immense weight, and the full, loud, deep-pitched crowing of the cock, that almost every one seemed desirous to possess some of the breed, and enormous prices were given for the eggs and chickens. With his propensity for exaggeration, Paddy boasted that they laid five eggs in two days, each weighing three ounces, that the fowls equalled turkeys in size, and "Cochin eggs became in as great demand as though they had been laid by the fabled golden goose. Philosophers, poets, merchants, and sweeps had alike partook of the mania; and although the latter could hardly come up to the price of a real Cochin, there were plenty of vagabond dealers about, with counterfeit crossed birds of all kinds, which were advertised to be the genuine article. For to such a pitch did the excitement rise, that they who never kept a fowl in their lives, and would hardly know a Bantam from a Dorking, puzzled their shallow brains as to the proper place to keep them, and the proper diet to feed them on." Their justly-deserved popularity speedily grew into a mania, and the price which had been from fifteen to thirty