BANTAMS, SILK FOWLS, FRIZZLED AND RUMPLESS FOWLS, &c., &c., can hardly be regarded as profitable poultry, but come under the description of fancy fowls. As paying stock, my opinion is in favour of one or other of the following varieties:-- For market fowls for table use, the coloured Dorking is unequalled. For the production of eggs, Hamburghs where there is a free range; Cochins and Spanish where there is less space; the first being the best winter layers, the latter yielding the largest eggs. Many persons recommend cross breeding fowls for the purpose of improving upon certain varieties; it is difficult to see by what cross the qualities of Dorkings, as table fowls, can be improved; or the superior laying properties of Hamburghs, Spanish, and Cochins, increased. To improve the hardihood of Dorkings some very experienced persons have recommended crossing a Malay cock with Dorking hens; in this case care must be taken to kill all the cross-bred chicken, as, if bred from again, a set of variable, worthless mongrels are the result. I have myself, however, never seen any cross-bred fowls equal for the table to the pure Dorking. For home consumption, yielding numerous eggs, and large size chicken, Cochins are very valuable; their hardihood, docility, and matronly habits, enable a greater number to be reared from the same number of hens, than can be obtained from any other variety; but as poultry for the market they are of little value. In conclusion, I would strongly recommend persons who are at present breeding from common fowls, not to attempt to improve them by the introduction of one or two good male birds into the yard, but to obtain a good stock either by the purchase of birds or eggs, and to breed from them alone, avoiding of course all intermarriage between blood relations. DISEASES. The diseases of poultry may perhaps be more conveniently arranged under the heads of the different parts that are affected than in any more strictly scientific order. We may therefore describe them as affecting the Skin, Lungs and Air Passages, Digestive System, Egg Organs, Brain, and the Organs of Motion. SKIN DISEASES.--When fowls are kept on unnatural food, and in closely confined, dirty situations, they are very liable to lose the feathers of the head and neck from a chronic disease of the skin. This complaint may be constantly seen in the fowls in the mews and stableyards in London, where it arises from the dirty, dark roosting places, and absence of fresh vegetable and insect food. Of course a radical cure is out of the question, unless the unnatural circumstances producing the disease are removed; if this is done, and a five-grain Plummer’s pill given on two or three occasions, at intervals of three days, the disease is speedily removed, but the feathers will not be replaced until the next moulting season.