FOWLS 35 



sex can be distinguished. After that poultry fanciers call the 

 young male a cockerel and the young female a pullet. The word 

 " pullet " is also used by others, but the popular names for a 

 cockerel are crower and young rooster. The word "cockerel," 

 as is seen at a glance, is the diminutive of " cock." The word 

 "pullet," sometimes spelled poulet, is a diminutive from the 

 French poule, "a hen." 



Origin of the fowl. Of the origin of the fowl we have no 

 direct knowledge. It was fully domesticated long before the be- 

 ginnings of history. There is no true wild race of fowls known. 

 For a long time it was commonly held that the Callus Bankiva, 

 found in the jungles of India, was the ancestor of all the races 

 of the domestic fowl, but this view was not accepted by some of 

 the most careful investigators, and the most recent inquiries into 

 the subject indicate that the so-called Callus Bankiva is not a 

 native wild species but a feral race, that is, a race developed in 

 the wild from individuals escaped from domestication. 



Appearance of the original wild species. The likeness of the 

 fowls shown in ancient drawings to the ordinary unimproved 

 stock in many parts of the world to-day shows that except as 

 by special breeding men have developed distinct races fowls 

 have not changed since the most remote times of which records 

 exist. From the constancy of this type through this long period 

 it is reasonably inferred that no marked change in the size and 

 shape of the fowl had occurred in domestication in prehistoric 

 times, and therefore that the original wild fowl very closely re- 

 sembled fowls which may be seen wherever the influence of 

 improved races has not changed the ordinary type. The par- 

 ticular point in which the wild species differed from a flock of 

 ordinary domestic fowls was color. Domestic fowls, unless care- 

 fully bred for one color type, are usually of many colors. In 

 the wild species, as a rule, only one color would be found, and 

 that would be brown, which is the prevailing color among small 

 land birds. 



