118 DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 



VIII. 

 POULTRY. 



Also fowls were prepared for me. ffehemiah v. 18. 

 I. THE DOMESTIC FOWL. 



OBODY knows when or by whom fowls were 

 . first domesticated. There are at most only two 

 or three allusions to them in the Old Testa- 

 ment, and these are of doubtful import. In 

 our motto, for instance, the word fowls may 

 mean simply birds. 



In the time of Aristotle, who wrote three hundred and fifty 

 years before Christ, however, they were evidently common ; 

 for he speaks of them as familiarly as a naturalist of the pres- 

 ent day. Everybody is familiar with the beautiful allusions to 

 them in the New Testament. 



The wild origin of our domestic fowl is entirely unknown. 

 The race, like that of the Dodo, is probably extinct. The Wild 

 Turkey will sooner or later share the same fate. 



Crested or top-knotted fowls appear to have been unknown 

 to the ancients. The earliest notice of them occurs in Aldro- 

 vandi, who speaks of a hen with "a crest like a lark." 



Domestic fowls now abound in all warm and temperate 

 climates, but disappear as we approach the poles. They were 

 found in abundance on the islands of the Pacific Ocean by their 

 earliest discoverers. How they got there nobody knows. 

 Probably in the same way that their human inhabitants found 

 their insular homes. Ellis, in his "Polynesian Researches," 

 says: "The traditions of the people state that fowls have 

 existed on the islands (Tahiti) as long as the people ; that they 



