Gallina Padovana

Unmistakable: a long beard, fleshy red nostrils either side of the beak, side whiskers, and a crest of long pointed feathers off the top of the head falling over the eyes. It cannot see much past them, which accounts for its tentative walk. The plumage runs black, white, gold, tan or silver. There were still several thousand birds early in the 20th century and next to none by the 1960s; the breed was held in Italy by the Duca degli Abruzzi institute in Padua and by a teacher, Gabriele Baldan, who gathered a few small breeders around it.