54 THE DOMESTIC FOWL. 



very important, not only for practical purposes, but also as 

 involving a great physiological principle, to show that species 

 and varieties are permanent, not ever-changing; that like does 

 beget like ; and that creatures are not moulded and modified 

 according to circumstances, and do not remodel their members 

 or acquire new ones, as the exigency of their situation for the 

 time being demands. In the case of Fowls, the theory of pro- 

 gressive development and change is certainly unsupported by 

 evidence, though they and other domesticated animals are sup- 

 posed to be instances in which it is peculiarly likely to be ex- 

 emplified. Before the Christian era, the varieties of fowl were 

 not less numerous, but in many instances were probably iden- 

 tical with what we have at the present day. Columella par- 

 ticularly recommends as the best, those sorts that have five 

 toes and white ears the marks of our highly-esteemed breeds, 

 the Dorking and the Spanish. He warns his contemporaries 

 that Bantams, " pumiliones aves," will prove troublesome, by 

 preventing the eggs of larger birds from being properly ferti- 

 lized. He dismissed the fighting breed as being foreign to his 

 subject, which treated only of profitable sorts, and had nothing 

 to do with cock-fighting. He mentions the Tanagric, the Rho- 

 dian, the Chalcidic, and the Medic, as tall birds of high cou- 

 rage, but prefers their own common sort, " nostrum vernacu- 

 lum," for economical purposes, allowing, however, that a first 

 cross produces fine chickens. " But the Adrianic Hens are 

 small indeed ; but they lay every day. They are ill-tempered, 

 and frequently kill the (he does not say their own) young. 

 And they are of all sorts of colours." Many of our larger 

 Bantams exactly tally to this, particularly in the savage 

 propensity to kill chickens which they discover to Ibe substi- 

 tuted. 



We may, therefore, infer that our existing Domestic Fowls 

 are not improvements or modifications of those Cocks that are 

 now found wild in the East, but that they have as much right 



