44 OUR DOJIESTIC FOWLS. 



were no doubt its recommendations. The 

 Greek names of tlie fowl are Alectryoii, 

 {dXfKTpvciiv,) and Alectoris, (uXeKTopis,) but il> 

 was also called the Persian bird, (ntpa-iKos opvis,) 

 and Aristophanes (Birds) introduces one of 

 his characters as showing how the cock had 

 reigned in Persia before Darius and Megabyzus, 

 a circumstance which goes some way to prove 

 the westward radiation of the fowl from its 

 Indian cradle. Various breeds for the combat 

 were highly esteemed in Greece. Those of 

 Tanagra Delos, and Rhodes, also of Chalcis, 

 Media, Persia, and the neighbourhood of 

 Alexandria, were in high repute. The Romans, 

 who imitated the Greeks in so many points, 

 adopted, among others, the savage amusement 

 of cock-fighting, so consonant to the taste of 

 a populace whose greatest delight was in the 

 combats of a blood-stained arena, where men 

 and beasts fell in mortal strife to gratify the 

 lust of slaughter. But the delicacy of the 

 flesh of these birds was by no means over- 

 looked by the Romans in the days of their 

 luxury, when exorbitant sums were lavished 

 upon the pleasures of the table, and the nobles 

 vied with each other in the senseless extrava- 

 gance of their entertainments. In order to 



