ORIGIN OF THE AMERICAN BREEDS 7 



world to which they have been subjected. The young birds become 

 tame when reared in confinement. This is an interesting trait of this 

 wild species, because an adaptability to domestication seems to be 

 one of the rarest qualities possessed by animals. The pheasant, for 

 instance, is truly wild, and there is an indescribable timidity about it 

 that will not permit it willingly to accept the company of man, his 

 care and protection in exchange for its own life in the wild. It has 

 been stated that the number of different kinds of animals which man 

 actually has domesticated, in the "thousands of years capturing, sub- 

 duing and taming hundreds of different species of all classes," does 

 not amount to fifty. 



There are three other varieties of wild Galli, in addition to the 

 bankiva, and all bear some resemblance to the common domestic 

 fowl. The late Homer Davenport had all four kinds on his farm at 

 Morris Plains, New Jersey. He found the gray and fork-tailed varie- 

 ties particularly wild, and it was impossible to handle them to any 

 extent. "They never become tame, and grow restless, however large 

 their aviaries may be," he wrote. Undoubtedly the four varieties are 

 allied somewhat closely, for they have been known to cross between 

 themselves and produce fertile offspring. The bankiva, however, is 

 known to cross with domestic stock and produce offspring that is 

 fertile. 



Darwin rejected all of the varieties, except the bankiva, as probable 

 progenitors of the domestic fowl, because of certain dissimilarities. 

 However, there was some lingering doubt in the mind of the old 

 naturalist, for he wrote: "Finally, we have not such good evidence 

 with fowls as with pigeons, of all breeds having descended from a 

 single primitive type." Later investigation, including the experiment 

 commenced in 1903 by the Ceylon Poultry Club to determine the 

 possibility of the Ceylon jungle fowl, or Gallus stanleyii, having been 

 one of the varieties from which domestic poultry had its origin, 

 resulted in showing in a limited way that when the G. stanleyii is, 

 bred to domestic fowls, the hybrids are not altogether sterile when 

 bred between themselves. This is of interest, for it suggests the 

 possibilities of some other wild species, of which no trace now 

 remains, having influenced the early domestic fowl. History on this 

 matter is very incomplete.' 



Introduction of the fowl to Europe. While the theory has been 

 advanced that the bankiva is a feral race which is to say, tame stock 

 that has escaped into the wild, like the wild horses that roamed over 

 the western plains which were descendants of horses brought to 

 America by the Spanish invaders the more general opinion prevails 

 that the bankiva was the progenitor of the early European stock. 

 The sculptured Lycian marbles now in the British Museum portray 

 a type that is representative of the jungle fowl. The bankiva is the 

 diminutive prototype of the Black-Red Game of the old English fight- 

 ing stock, and also resembles the Brown Leghorn, an Italian breed. 



