494 



A HISTORY OF 





CHAPTER LXXXIX. 



OF THE COCK. 



ALL birds taken under the protection of 

 man lose a part of their natural figure, and 

 are altered, not only in their habits, but their 

 very form. Climate, food, and captivity, are 

 three very powerful agents in producing these 

 alterations ; and those birds that have 

 longest felt their influence under human 

 direction, are the most likely to have the 

 greatest variety in their figures, their plumage, 

 and their dispositions. 



Of all other birds, the cock seems to be 

 the oldest companion of mankind, to have 

 been first reclaimed from the forest, and taken 

 to supply the accidental failure of the lux- 

 uries or necessities of life. As he is thus 

 longest under the care of man, so of all others 

 perhaps he exhibits the greatest number of 

 varieties, there being scarce two birds of 

 this species that exactly resemble each other 

 in plumage and form. The tail, which makes 

 such a beautiful figure in the generality of 

 these birds, is yet found entirely wanting in 

 others ; and not only the tail, but the rump 

 also. The toes, which are usually four in all 

 animals of the poultry kind, yet in a species 

 of the cock are found to amount to five. The 

 feathers, which lie so sleek and in such beau- 

 tiful order in most of those we are acquainted 

 with, are in a peculiar breed all inverted, and 

 stand staring the wrong way. Nay, there is 

 a species that comes from Japan, which, in- 

 stead of feathers, seems to be covered over 

 with hair. These, and many other varieties, 

 are to be found in this animal, which seem to 

 be the marks this early prisoner bears of his 

 long captivity. 



It is not well ascertained when the cock 

 was first made domestic in Europe, but it is 

 generally agreed that we first had him in our 

 western world from the kingdom of Persia. 

 Aristophanes calls the cock the Persian bird, 

 and tells us he enjoyed that kingdom before 

 some of its earliest monarchs. This animal 

 was in fact known so early, even in the most 



savage parts of Europe, that we are told the 

 j cock was one of the forbidden foods among 

 : the ancient Britons. Indeed, the domestic fowl 

 seems to have banished the wild one. Persia 

 itself, that first introduced it to our acquain- 

 tance, seems no longer to know it in its natu- 

 ral form ; and if we did not find it wild in 

 some of the woods of India, as well as those 

 of the Islands in the Indian ocean, we might 

 begin to doubt, as we do with regard to the 

 sheep, in what form it first existed in a state of 

 nature. 



But those doubts no longer exist: the cock 

 is found in the island of Tinian, in many 

 others of the Indian ocean, and in the woods 

 on the coast of Malabar, in his ancient state 

 of independence. In his wild condition, his 

 plumage is black and yellow, and his comb 

 and wattles yellow and purple. There is 

 another peculiarity also in those of the Indian 

 woods ; their bones, which when boiled with 

 us are white, as every body knows, in those 

 are as black as ebony. Whether this tincture 

 proceeds from their food, as the bones are 

 tinctured red by feeding upon madder, I leave 

 to the discussion of others : satisfied with the 

 fact, let us decline speculation. 



In their first propagation in Europe, there 

 were distinctions then that now subsist no 

 longer. The ancients esteemed those fowls 

 whose plumage was reddish as invaluable; 

 but as for the white, it was considered as 

 utterly unfit for domestic purposes. These 

 they regarded as subject to become a prey 

 to rapacious birds ; and Aristotle thinks them 

 less fruitful than the former. Indeed, his 

 division of those birds seems to be taken 

 from their culinary uses ; the one sort he calls 

 generous and noble, being remarkable for 

 fecundity; the other sort, ignoble and useless, 

 from their sterility. These distinctions differ 

 widely from our modern notions of generosity 

 in this animal ; that which we call the game- 

 cock being by no means so fruitful as the 



