OUR DOMESTIC FOWLS. 



INTRODUCTION. 



The only history of man in Lis primeval 

 condition is that contained in the book of 

 Genesis. The records of that book — the 

 truthfulness of -which modern discoveries tend 

 more and more to confirm, (irrespective of 

 the claim, which its internal evidence justifies, 

 to the pen of inspiration,) — show us that our 

 primitive forefathers were far removed from 

 that debased condition in which we now find 

 the natives of Australia, or some of the 

 Papuan islands. They were not savages — nor 

 is a savage state of existence natural to man ; 

 it is not that to which he necessarily and at 

 once descended after the fall ; it is not that 

 for which the Almighty destined his species ; 

 but, nevertheless, it is a state into which 

 tribes and people have degenerated. At the 

 same time, they are not without the capa- 



