388 Mr. E. Blyth's Remarks on M. SundevalPs Paper 



this country, to the third generation'; but I doubt altogether, 

 whatever may be the probability one way or the other, of our 

 having sufficient data for arriving at so conclusive an opinion. 

 As Jacquemont and others have remarked, the natives of India 

 draw a wide distinction between the Sahib logue or European 

 gentry, and the Goras or plebeian Europeans (the term Gora 

 merely signifying ' fair/ and being applied by them to people of 

 fair complexion, whether native or European ; but as applied to 

 the latter, in general referring exclusively to the class of sailors 

 and private soldiers, and by no means in a complimentary sense, 

 anymore than 'Feringhee' is*). The Sahib logue are much 

 respected by them as a class ; the Gora logue considerably the 

 reverse. Now, the children of the former, born in India, are, with 

 extremely few exceptions, sent home when very young to be edu- 

 cated, which of course invalidates their claim for consideration in 

 this question ; though even if it did not, the influx of new Euro- 

 pean blood into this country is so great, that upon their return 

 to India by far the greater proportion of them become united in 

 marriage to individuals born in Europe, whence it would certainly 

 be no easy matter to find a series of three generations of unmixed 

 Indian-born Europeans of the Sahib class. As for the lower class 

 of Europeans, it would be equally difficult to find such a series 

 unmingled with country blood, besides that the sad prevalence 

 of intemperance interferes materially with any conclusions that 

 might otherwise be deduced. 



M. Sundevall might well have sought in vain for traces of the 

 wild Gallus Sonneratii in the domestic poultry of India, inasmuch 

 as, — though, curiously enough, I have found that species of South 

 India far more easily domesticable than the Bengal Jungle-fowl, — 

 the latter is, beyond all question, the exclusive aboriginal stock 

 from which the whole of our domestic varieties of common poultry 

 have descended. However different these may be, whether the 

 silky fowl of China, the gigantic Chittagong race, or the feather- 

 legged bantams of Burmah, &c, their voice at once and unmis- 

 takeably proclaims their origin, and is as different as can be, in 

 every cry, from that of G. Sonneratii : besides that we continually 

 meet with common domestic cocks which correspond, feather by 

 feather, with the wild bird ; the peculiar notched comb of which 

 is again retained invariably, even when the comb is double or 

 compound : this much premised, however, it is remarkable that 

 the domestic poultry of India do not approximate the wild race 

 in any respect more closely than the common fowls of Europe, 

 and I have sought in vain for traces of intermixture of Jungle- 

 fowl blood in districts where the species abounds in a state of 

 nature. 



* Thus, at least, in Calcutta and its vicinity. 



