108 HISTORY or 



beautiful figure in the generality of these birds, is yet found en- 

 tirely 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 beautiful 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 all over with hair. These, and many other varie- 

 ties, 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 do- 

 mestic in Europe, but it is generally agreed that we first had 

 him in our western world fiom the kingdom of Persia. Aris- 

 tophanes calls the cock the Persian bird, and tells us, he enjoyed 

 that kingdom before some of its earliest monarchs. This ani- 

 mal 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 

 Rome of the woods of India, as well as those of the islands 

 in the Indian ocean, we might begin to doubt, as we do with 

 regard to the sheep, in what form 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 Malabai-, in his ancient state of indepen- 

 dence. In his wild condition, his plumage is black and yellow, 

 aiid his comb and wattles yellosv 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. Whether this tincture proceeds from their 

 food, as the bones are tinctured red by feeding upon madder, I 

 leave to the discussion of others : satisfied 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 



