THE POULTRY KIND. 87 



nirds 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 beauti- 

 ful 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, instead 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 west 

 ern 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 rnonarchs. This animal was in fact known so early 

 even in the most savage parts of Europe, that we are told the 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. acquaintance, seems no longer to know 

 it in its natural form; and if we did not find it wild in some of the 

 woods of India, as well as those of the islands of the Indian ocean, 

 we might begin to doubt, as we do with regard to the sheep, in what 

 foi m 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. Whe- 

 ther this tincture proceeds from their food, as the bones are tinctured 

 red by feeding upon madder, I leave to the discussion of others : sa- 

 tisfied 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 con- 

 sidered 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 ge- 

 nerous and noble, being remarkable for fecundity ; the other sort, ig- 

 noble and useless, from their sterility. These distinctions differ wide- 

 ly from our modern notions of generosity in this animal ; that which 

 we call the game-cock, being by no means so fruitful as the ungene- 

 rous dung-hill cock, which we treat with contempt. The Athenians 

 had their cock-matches as well as we : but it is probable they did not 

 enter into our refinement of choosing out the most barren of the spe 

 cies for the purposes of combat. 



However this be, no animal in the world has greater courage thau 

 the cock, when opposed to one of his own species ; arid in every pan 



