40 OUR DOMESTIC FOWLS. 



European shipping. It is now a place of com- 

 parative insignificance. 



From this it would seem that the jungle- 

 fowls domesticated and sold to the Europeans 

 at Bantam, continued to be designated by the 

 name of the place where they were obtained, 

 and in process of time the name was appro- 

 priated to all our dwarfish breeds. 



Among the birds forming the collection in 

 the Chinese museum, exhibited for some years 

 at Hyde Park Corner, are specimens of the 

 Bankiva jungle-fowl ; of the species indige- 

 nous in China, in a wild state, its range is 

 more extensive than naturalists are aware of; 

 it is, however, not improbable, that the speci- 

 mens were imported into Canton from Java, and 

 there sold with other specimens, some indige- 

 nous, others from Malacca, to the proprietor 

 of the museum. We are the more confirmed 

 in this opinion, because we find the argus 

 pheasant, a native of ]\Ialacca, Sumatra, etc, 

 in the same collection. 



With respect to Sonnerat's jungle-fowl, the 

 ordinary jungle-fowl of continental India, 

 though the traveller whose name it bears 

 regarded it as the stock whence our domestic 

 races sprung, we cannot say that such is our 



