A COMMERCIAL POINT OF VIEW. 1 05 



report, which otherwise might have borne the appear- 

 ance of exaggeration in many respects, and perhaps 

 have still left a doubt in the mind of many persons 

 whether I really made all possible inquiries into the 

 truth of the reported existence of Gallinocultural estab- 

 lishments in France. 



I will now briefly relate the steps I have taken to 

 inquire into this matter. At the Jardin des Plantes of 

 Paris, which corresponds to our Zoological Society in 

 Regent's Park, also at the Acclimatation Society in the 

 Bois de Boulogne, where the various breeds of poultry 

 form an important object, the existence of any such 

 Gallinocultural establishments in France was totally un- 

 known ; and they observed very justly that if any such 

 really were to exist, they would be the first to know 

 of it. Next I called three consecutive market days at 

 the wholesale poultry market, La Vallee, Paris, where 

 all the poultry, dead or alive, forwarded from the vari- 

 ous parts of France, is sold by auction from five till 

 nine o'clock in the morning. Several agents and poul- 

 terers made inquiries for me of poultry merchants from 

 the different parts of France, but with the same result. 

 I made further inquiries at the dead poultry market at 

 the Halles Centrales, also of a number of fancy poul- 

 try dealers, but all to no purpose ; a few days later, on 

 calling again at the Jardin d'Acclimatation, Monsieur 

 A. Geoffroy St. Hilaire, the director, told me that a 

 friend of his had informed him that such an establish- 

 ment really did exist at Mouy, near Beauvais in Pi- 

 cardie, and he gave me his card, and the following in 

 writing, adding, however, that he did not believe in it, 



