2 5 2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



which had become noted for breeding them e. g., Rhodes, Chalcis, 

 Delos or directly from Persia. 



That the fowl did not come into Germany from Italy, but that a 

 more direct transfer of it from Persia perhaps by way of Thrace, 

 Illyria, and Pannonia must have taken place, is shown by the names 

 (ha/ui t huhn, henne), which are independent of, and different from, the 

 Greek and Latin names ; and it is further shown by the ideas and rep- 

 resentations which, in the North, are connected with the fowl. Thus 

 we find in separate and distinct places the same belief as in Persia 

 that the cock, by his crowing, frightens away the evil spirits ; he was 

 the symbol of flame, the animal of Loki, the god of fire : when he un- 

 folded his wings, conflagrations started up under him, whence comes 

 the still current expression for an act of incendiarism, " To set the red 

 cock upon any one's roof." Caesar reports of the Britons that among 

 them, just as among the Persians, no one was allowed to eat the flesh 

 of fowls. At what time, however, the northern immigration took place 

 can not be accurately stated ; yet the supposition can not be wide of 

 the truth that it was when the Persians, during their expeditions to 

 Greece, came into contact with the above-named tribes : somewhere 

 about the fifth century b. c. From that starting-point, then, this 

 useful domestic animal soon spread abroad everywhere, and found al- 

 ways the most ready reception wherever man was about to change 

 from a nomadic shepherd-life and have a settled, permanent home. At 

 present the breeding of fowls receives most attention in France, which 

 country is said to support, at the lowest calculation, 100,000,000 fowls 

 a striking example of what an important part in the economical life 

 of a people this animal is capable of playing. 



The peacock, too, is a native of Asia, having come to us from In- 

 dia. Phoenician ships, so early as the time of Solomon, brought it to 

 the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. The first place in which peacocks 

 were kept in Greece seems to have been the temple of Hera in Samos, 

 for there, according to mythology, this bird had its origin. That the 

 peacock was dedicated to Hera can not astonish us, for she is the god- 

 dess of the starry heaven. Another myth related that the thousand- 

 eyed Argus, the watcher of the moon goddess Io, had been slain by 

 Apollo and changed into a peacock, or that Hera had placed his thou- 

 sand eyes upon the feathers of her bird. Moreover, the peacock was 

 very profitable for that temple of Hera, inasmuch as its plumage en- 

 ticed thither many inquisitive sight-seers, who willingly paid the tem- 

 ple tribute for a sight of the beautiful bird. As a reward for this, the 

 Samians placed its image upon their coins. 



In Athens we find the peacock first mentioned in the fifth century 

 b. c, and the contemporary writers fail to find sufficient words to tell 

 what a surprise its appearance had made among that inquisitive and nov- 

 elty-loving people. It is, therefore, not remarkable that, already in the 

 fourth century b. c, peacocks were more numerous in Athens than quail. 



