THE ORIGIN OF DOMESTIC FOWL 



C. B. Davenport 



Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island, N. Y. 



IT is commonly stated that the Jungle 

 Fowl {Callus ferrugineus) of India, 

 southern China and the East Indies 

 is the ancestor of our domestic fowl. 

 But when we consider the great variety 

 of characters that our domestic races 

 exhibit it becomes hard for us to under- 

 stand how they could have arisen from 

 a single source. It is, indeed, pretty 

 certain that two distinct species have 

 contributed to the formation of our 

 well known races: — one is the Jungle 

 Fowl, which is still found wild, and the 

 other is the unknown ancestor of the 

 Aseel or Malay Fowl, probably the 

 oldest fowl in domestication, for it has 

 been bred for over 3000 years. It is 

 still possible that the ancestor of this 

 bird or its bones may be found in the 

 interior of New Guinea, Borneo, or the 

 Philippines. 



The Aseel has many points of dififer- 

 ence from the Jtuigle Fowl and brings 

 in a whole set of characters that our 

 domestic races have and the Jungle 

 Fowl lacks. Thus the Jungle Fowl is a 

 slender, agile bird with long wings, erect 

 tail and a good flyer; while the Aseel is 

 a very broad, heavy bird with short 

 wings, drooping tail and unable to fly. 

 The Jungle Fowl has a long, slender 

 beak ; that of the Aseel is short and thick. 

 The comb of the former is single, high; 



that of the latter, triple (or "pea") and 

 low. The former has slender, olive 

 colored shanks; the latter thick and 

 yellow shanks. The Jungle Fowl has 

 a red eye; that of the Aseel is pearl 

 colored. The Jungle Fowl has the well 

 known English Black-breasted Red 

 Game pattern; the Aseel is mottled. 

 The Jungle Fov/1 is the foundation stock 

 of our nervous, flighty, egg laying races — 

 the Leghorn, Minorca, Spanish, Anda- 

 lusian, etc. — the races that first spread 

 over Europe, probably from the stock 

 that was brought back from Persia by 

 the expeditions of Alexander the Great. 

 All of these races ordinarily carry the 

 determiner of the Jungle type of colora- 

 tion. Representatives of the Aseel type 

 (which had long been established in 

 Eastern India and China) were brought 

 to America, becoming the ancestors of 

 the Asiatic breeds and the fine, general- 

 purpose breeds — the Plymouth Rocks, 

 Wyandottes, Orpingtons, etc. Such do 

 not regularly carry the Jungle type of 

 color pattern. In one case, on the 

 contrary, — namely in the Buff Cochins, 

 — they introduced a new kind of color 

 which (arisen in China 1500 years ago) 

 has never been produced independently 

 since . The fowl of the Aseel type are poor 

 egg layers but their stocky build and great 

 size make them unrivalled as table birds. 



Racial Origin of Successful Americans 



Dr. Frederick Adams Woods, chairman of the research committee in eugenics 

 of this Association, writes in the Popular Science Monthly (April, 1914) on "The 

 Racial Origin of Successfvd Americans." His study is confined to men of distinction 

 or high official position in the four largest cities of the United States. He finds that 

 those of English and Scotch ancestry are distinctly in possession of the leading 

 places, at least from the standpoint of being widely known; and, in proportion to 

 their number, the Anglo-Saxons are from three to ten times as likely as are the other 

 races to achieve national distinction in the United States at present. 



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