8 THE DOMESTIC FOWL. 



commencement of the Christian era record that they 

 were classed into such a number of distinct varieties 

 as could only have been the result of long cultivation. 

 Whether we suppose that different breeds were col- 

 lected and imported from different native stations, or 

 assume that the differences of those breeds were the 

 artificial result of domestication, whichever case we 

 take, domestic fowls must have been held in familiar 

 esteem for many, many ages before we have any clear 

 record of them. Either supposition attaches to them 

 a highly interesting and quite mysterious degree of 

 antiquity. 



When the Romans, under Julius Caesar, invaded the 

 shores of Britain, they found both the fowl and the 

 goose in a state of domestication ; but these, as well 

 as the hare, were forbidden as food. " They deemed it 

 not lawful to eat the hare, the fowl, and the goose ; 

 nevertheless, they bred these animals for the sake of 

 fancy and pleasure.' 7 Through what channel, it may 

 be asked, did the fowl reach this ultima Thule? 



At the time of the discovery of the American continent 

 by Europeans, the domestic fowl was not found in any 

 part of it, neither was it found on any of the Atlantic 

 Isles, although the Canaries, the supposed Fortunate 

 Islands of the ancfents, were inhabited by a half-civil- 

 ized people, who held in subjugation sheep, goats, 

 hogs, and dogs. 



Dr. Kidd, in his " Bridgewater Treatise," doubts 

 whether the camel ever existed in a wild and inde- 

 pendent state. But others do not go quite so far as 

 that in scepticism in the case of fowls, but still believe 

 that those, who, at this epoch, hunt for cocks and hens 

 of the same species as our tame ones, either on the 

 continent of Asia, or throughout the whole inhabited 

 vast Indian Archipelago, will have undertaken but a 

 fruitless search. For certain writers have been at 

 great pains, for some years past, with but little suc- 

 cess, except in their own conceit, to pitch upon the 

 wild origin of our domestic fowls. The first decided 



