92 THOSE OTHER ANIMALS. 



one time reigned over that country. It is to the East, then, 

 that we must look for the ancestors of the domestic fowl, 

 although it is not known how the breed was introduced into 

 Greece or the South of Europe. It may either have come 

 through Northern India, or Persia, or have been introduced 

 by Phoenician traders. It figured early on Greek and 

 Roman coinage, and was carried in the public shows of 

 those nations. It was dedicated by the ancients to Apollo, 

 Mercury, yEsculapius, and Mars and the Romans, good 

 judges in matters gastronomic, had already discovered 

 that it was best when fattened and crammed in the dark. 

 Probably the Phoenicians brought it to Britain when 

 they came for tin; at any rate, it was here before the 

 invasion of Ctesar, who tells us that the Britons abstained 

 from tasting the hare, the cock, and the goose, although 

 they bred them for pleasure probably, in the case of the 

 cock, for its fighting powers. As poultry have been found 

 domesticated in widely different localities, among peoples 

 having no communication with each other, and even in 

 islands in the South Seas, which must have been cut off 

 from communication with the mainland for vast periods 

 of time, it is evident that their domestication must have 

 taken place in the very earliest times, or that there was a 

 natural fearlessness and a desire for man's companionship 

 on the part of the fowl that marked it out as specially 

 adapted to be his servant and purveyor. 



The hand of man has brought about many changes in 

 the bird by the intermingling of species, by careful breeding 

 to render accidental peculiarities permanent, and by other 

 methods ; by these a great variety of breeds have now been 

 established differing widely from each other in size and 



