POULTRY. 



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POULTRY. 



THE term poultry may be defined as meaning all domesticated birds (Gallinacea), such 

 as the common fowl, the Guinea fowl, the turkey, and the pigeon ; and palmipeds, as 

 the duck and goose, as far as they are reared for useful purposes. The word poul 

 try comes from the Latin word pullus, which means a chicken, or the young of any animal. 

 The modern word poultry, however, may be said to more properly come from the French 

 word poule, signifying hen ; the word pullet being* derived from the French poulet, a chicken. 

 In the modern sense, the word poultry is more generally applied to the genus gallus or barn 

 yard fowls, the word fowl being used with a prefix, to denote other species, as water-fowl, 

 which applies to ducks and geese, Guinea-fowl, etc., while turkeys, peacocks, pheasants, etc., 

 are usually designated by their particular name. 



GALLTJS BANKTVA, OK WILD JUNGLE FOWL. 



For sixty years or more enterprising breeders of poultry in this country and England 

 have been endeavoring in various ways to improve the domestic fowl, forming new breeds 

 for this purpose, domesticating wild birds and importing new races already domesticated in 

 other countries. 



Many foreign breeds have in this way been widely disseminated, such as the Asiatic 

 fowls, the Aylesbury, Rouen, and Pekin Ducks, the Toulouse, Hong Kong, and Bremen 

 Geese, the Bronze Turkey, etc. There still remain, both in this country and Europe, many desira 

 ble kinds of native fowl which might easily be tamed and made valuable breeds for domestic 

 use ; and it would not be strange if a few years glimpse into the future would show us many 



