Bantam

Bantam, a name given to any diminutive breed of the domestic fowl in the belief that they originally came from Bantam in Java, though they are probably Japanese in origin. The term is now applied to diminutive fowls without any reference to breed. The older strains of Bantam fowls are: - The Black, the White, the Cochin, the Cuckoo, the Japanese, the Nankin, Game, and the Gold and Silver Laced, or Sebright Bantams, in which last the fowls have the laced feathers of the Polish, and the distinctive male plumage is absent in the cocks. But all the large varieties of poultry have now been bred down to the diminutive or "Bantam" form.