SECTION L 

 CHAPTER I. 



ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF DOMESTIC FOWLS 



THE ORIGIN OF FOWLS is a subject in which the orni- 

 thologist is much more deeply interested than the practical 

 poultryman, the breeder, or even the ardent fancier ; and, 

 it is a topic that he alone is competent to discuss. The accounts 

 that we find in the best poultry works vary considerably. Hence, 

 we say that it is a subject upon which the student of ornithology, 

 alone, is qualified to pass judgment. 



The origin of domestic fowls is generally attributed to the 

 Gallus bankiva, of ferrugineus, commonly called the Jungle Fowl 

 of India, which some claim are still to be seen there. Specimens 

 claimed to be such were exhibited at the Madison Square Garden 

 Show, New York, not more than ten or possibly fifteen years 

 ago. These specimens bore a close resemblance to the illustra- 

 tions of the Jungle Fowl which we find in poultry books pub- 

 lished about the middle of the nineteenth century. On the other 

 hand, it does not require a great stretch of the imagination to 

 see them as the result of a cross between a Black-Red Game Ban- 

 tam and a Brown Leghorn. In fact, they looked like a somewhat 

 overgrown specimen of the former, while the plumage resembled 

 that of the latter when unscientifically bred. 



Variation in Early Types. Some authorities maintain that 

 birds varying in type as widely as do different breeds of our 

 domestic fowls, as for instance the Game Bantam and the 

 Brahma, or the Cochin and the Game, could not have been pro- 

 duced from one species, and that our present day domestic fowls 

 must trace their origin back to at least two sources. 



Edward Brown, in "Races of Domestic Poultry," points out 

 the fact that naturalists as a rule for a time accepted the Darwin 

 theory, that all races of our domestic fowls were descendants of 

 the Gallus ferrugineus, the Jungle Fowl of India, while poultry- 

 men as a rule refute this and accepted the theory first advanced 

 by Lewis Wright, that it was improbable that several of our 



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