308 Mr. Blyth on Ceylon Ornitholoyy. 



entire or uncut comb, and some blue colour on the cheeks ! 

 But this curious domestic race has the hackled ruff of all do- 

 mestic poultry, and not the broad-feathered [Thaumalia-Yike) 

 ruff of G.varius*. "The Jungle-fowl/' writes Mr. E. L. La- 

 yard, " is abundant in all the uncultivated portions of Ceylon, 

 but particularly so in the northern and north-westei'n provinces" 

 {Cf. Ann. & Mag. N. H. 1853, xi. p. 232, and 1854, xiv. p. 62). 

 With regard to the speckled eggs of this species, I may remark 

 that I have several times obtained very much speckled eggs of do- 

 mestic fowls in Bengal, and have noticed them to occur commonly 

 in the Chinese Shanghai breed, which are very like feather-legged 

 Dorkings, and have the same anomalous second hind-toe. Mr. 

 Layard observes, " The young, when just hatched, resemble 

 young chickens,'' as do also those of other Jungle-fowl. This I 

 mention because in certain domestic fowls which are widely 

 diffused over the hot parts of Asia (and not otherwise remark- 

 able) the chickens are naked, or nearly so, till almost half-grown. 

 Some of these were doubtless introduced into the Spanish 

 colonies of South America probably from the Philippines, and 

 succeeded better than the previous stock, which I take to be the 

 true explanation of the assumed phenomenon cited as a sup- 

 posed proof of climatal influence in Prichard's work on Man. 

 The wild Jungle-fowl are inhabitants of hot countries, and are 

 clad with down when hatched, like all other wild Gallinacea. 



37. Galloperdix bicalcarata, Forster, Ind. Zool. (1781) 

 p. 25; Tetrao zeylonensis, Gmel. S. N. (1788), p. 759; Gallo- 

 perdix zeylonensis, Gould, B. As. part vi. pi. 



This is the finest of the three species, all of which are figured 

 in successive plates by Mr. Gould. It is known to Europeans, 

 writes Mr. Layard, under the various denominations of " Spur- 

 fowl," ''Double-spurred Partridge," and " Kan dy Partridge," 



* A cock bred from a Chinese silky fowl of this race and an ordinary 

 domestic hen had the feathers but slightly sUlfy, and an ordinary incised 

 red comb and wattles, like the common breed of silky fowls. Mj' late 

 friend Mr. Frith received the parent cock here noticed from China, as 

 "a strange kind of Eagle ; " and, curiously enough, Strickland sent me a 

 description of an anomalous kind of Eagle in China, which I was able at 

 once to identify as the particular race of domestic silky fowl in question. 



