Richard Terrot                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                First Honorary Secretary of the club when it was formed
in 1915

By Richard Terrot
(writing in The Feathered World 20 June 1920
In my last contribution on Belgian Bearded Bantams I promised to give some
  particulars as to their origin. I am sorry to say my friend Monsieur de
Bruycker  was too ill to reply to my queries, but deputed Monsieur Delin who is
an old  enthuisiast of the breed, and who judged them at the Crystal Palace Show
of  1913, to answer my letter for him. He says: “The origin of the breed is
  imperfectly known. Charles Jacque, the French artist (1813-94), in his book on
  poultry le Poullailler, written in 1860, gives a good description of it
  and a plate of a feather, neatly barred with five stripes (coucou). According
to  this author, they are a Netherlands breed, Belgium and Holland.”


The late Louis Van der Snickt, in his remarkable work on continental, and
  especially Belgian breeds, writes: “The Barbus were imported at the end of the
  seventeenth century by navigators from the Sunda and Malaya isles to the port
of  Antwerp, from which they were given their name.” Van der Snickt founded his
  opinions on documents of that time. They were known then, as since twenty years
ago, only in coucou, black and golden varieties. The golden were perfected as quails.
I am sure my readers will greatly appreciate the kindness of Monsieur Delin in taking the trouble to write the foregoing account of the origin of the
breed,  but it still leaves us wondering a little in certain details.


Feather Samples

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