THE DOMESTIC FOWL. 37 



delicacy ; and a dish of Cock's combs is one of the few things 

 in which modern taste coincides with theirs. The Latin crista 

 trust not, therefore, be translated by the English crest when 

 it has reference to Cocks and Hens. Cirrus is the Latin word 

 used by Pliny to denote the tuft of feathers on the head of 

 certain Ducks (fuligulce), and also properly adopted by Aldro- 

 vandi to express the top-knot of Polish Fowls. Theocritus 

 calls the Cock 3?om;eoxo<j>ov. We know something about the 

 red combs, but nothing of the red crests of Fowls. 



There is a passage in jElian, which at first sight would 

 appear to contradict the notion that the ancients had no top- 

 knotted fowls, but which, in fact, strongly confirms it. 



"And (in India) Cocks are produced of the greatest size, 

 and they have a comb which is not red like those of our fowls, 

 but variegated like the corolla of flowers ; and they have their 

 rump-feathers, not curved nor twisted into screws (as in the 

 bird of Paradise), but broad ; and they drag them after them, 

 like Peacocks, when they do not erect them and set them up ; 

 and the colour of the feathers of the Indian Cocks is golden 

 and cserulean, like the stone smaragdus." Lib. xvi., c. 2. 

 The smaragdus was the emerald ; a metallic lustre is clearly 

 indicated. That the bird in question was not the Gallus 

 Gallinaceus is certain, from the absence of the sickle feathers 

 in the tail. What it was, is not our bounden duty to decide. 

 It is not, moreover, stated that the xo<j>oj, though variegated, 

 did consist of feathers. It might have been a helmet, like 

 that of the Guinea-fowl. The earliest notice of Crested Fowls 

 that I am aware of, occurs in Aldrovandi; one of which sorts 

 is "our common country Hen, all white, and with a crest like 

 that of a lark," a very useful comparison, that will serve to 

 distinguish such-like from the Polish Fowls; the other, what 

 he calls the Paduan, evidently a variety of the Polish or Poland 



If birds with such peculiarities were unknown to the ancients, 

 it will be asked through what agency they have made their 



