Chap. VII. THEIR HISTORY. 259 



by Julius Caesar. In India it must have been domesticated 

 when the Institutes of Manu were written, that is, according 

 to Sir W. Jones, 1200 B.C., but, according to the later authority 

 of Mr. H. Wilson, only 800 B.C., for the domestic fowl is 

 forbidden, whilst the wild is permitted to be eaten. If, as 

 before remarked, we may trust the old Chinese Encyclopaedia, 

 the fowl must have been domesticated several centuries 

 earlier, as it is said to have been introduced from the West 

 into China 1400 B.C. 



Sufficient materials do not exist for tracing the history 

 of the separate breeds. About the commencement of the 

 Christian era, Columella mentions a five-toed fighting breed, 

 and some provincial breeds ; but we know nothing about 

 them. He also alludes to dwarf fowls ; but these cannot 

 have been the same with our Bantams, which, as Mr. 

 Crawfurd has shown, were imported from Japan into Bantam 

 in Java. A dwarf fowl, probably the true Bantam, is re- 

 ferred to in an old Japanese Encyclopaedia, as I am informed 

 by Mr. Birch. In the Chinese Encyclopaedia published in 

 1596, but compiled from various sources, some of high 

 antiquity, seven breeds are mentioned, including what we 

 should now call Jumpers or Creepers, and likewise fowls with 

 black feathers, bones, and flesh. In 1600 Aldrovandi de- 

 scribes seven or eight breeds of fowls, and this is the most 

 ancient record from which the age of our European breeds 

 can be inferred. The G alius turcicus certainly seems to be a 

 pencilled Hamburgh ; but Mr. Brent, a most capable judge, 

 thinks that Aldrovandi " evidently figured what he happened 

 to see, and not the best of the breed." Mr. Brent, indeed, 

 considers all Aldrovandi's fowls as of impure breed ; but it is 

 a far more probable view that all our breeds have been much 

 improved and modified since his time ; for, as he went to the 

 expense of so many figures, he probably would have secured 

 characteristic specimens. The Silk fowl, however, probably 

 then existed in its present state, as did almost certainly the 

 fowl with frizzled or reversed feathers. Mr. Dixon 34 considers 



34 ' Ornamental and Domestic Poul- 312. For Golden Hamburghs, see 

 try,' 18i7, p. 185 ; for passages Aloin's ' Natural History of Birds,' 

 translated from Columella, see p. 3 vols., with plates 1731-38. 



