8 POULTRY BREEDING AND MANAGEMENT 



the Cochin is perpendicular, in our old breeds horizontal, a 

 difference that could never have been bred for, and which 

 it is difficult to see could be correlative with any other 

 change. The same may be said respecting the deep sulcus 

 or groove up the center of the frontal bone. 



"The extraordinary diminution in the size of the flight 

 feathers and that of the pectoral muscles could hardly have 

 been the result of human selection and careful breeding, 

 as the value of the birds as articles of food is considerably 

 lessened by the absence of flesh on the breast. Nor is the 

 extreme abundance of fluffy, soft body feathers a character 

 likely to be desired in a fowl. The vastly increased size may 

 have been a matter of selection, although, as the inhabitants 

 of Shanghai feed their poultry but scantily, and, according 

 to Mr. Fortune, mainly on paddy of unhusked rice, it is not 

 easy to see how the size of the breed was obtained if, as is 

 generally surmised, it arose from the little jungle fowl. 



"Taking all these facts into consideration, I am induced 

 to believe that the birds of the Cochin type did not descend 

 from the same species as our game fowl. ' ' 



Mr. Edward Brown expresses his opinion as follows: 



"To sum up, therefore, it may be taken that with the 

 domestic fowl, as with many other natural forms of life, we 

 can go so far back, but no further. The probability is that, as 

 in the case of dogs, all the varieties of fowls do not owe their 

 origin to any one species, at any rate of those now extant, 

 and that we must look to another progenitor than the G. fer- 

 rugineus for several of the later introduced races, more es- 

 pecially those from China. " 



Such, briefly stated, is the argument, pro and con, as to the 

 common origin of the domestic fowl. It may be enough for 

 us to know that we have the chicken that lays the eggs and 

 feeds the world. In the jungles of farther India a wild 

 fowl is scratching and cackling to-day as its ancestors did 



