THE ORIGIN OF THE DOMESTIC COCK. 331 



the introduction of fresh Cuckoo game blood, and a little care in 

 breeding, would have established a permanent breed of this 

 variety. 



From the above it will be seen that although birds of a 

 marked different variety were bred from, namely, Black-reds and 

 Whites, producing birds of two other very pronounced varieties, 

 namely. Blues and Cuckoos ; yet directly these were allowed to 

 breed inter se (among themselves), or to cross with common 

 poultry, as in the case of the White cock with the farmyard 

 poultry, they all, although retaining their different colours for 

 some length of time, gradually relapsed into Eed cocks and 

 Brown hens. In fact there seemed a strong determination, both 

 in the Blues and Cuckoos, to throw back to red cocks and dark 

 brown hens. I find also that in breeding pure Whites, as well as 

 with pure Black game (a very beautiful variety), constant intro- 

 duction of fresh blood is needed to keep out the red colour, which 

 without it is almost certain to reappear in each successive brood. 

 In nearly all farmyards in this country where the poultry are 

 not carefully looked after, and are allowed to breed as they like, 

 one invariably sees a common Eed cock sometimes with a black 

 breast, but in all cases with a distinct bar more or less strongly 

 marked on the wing, and hens of various shades of brown. 



This bar on the wing, like the double wing bar so strongly 

 marked on the Wild Eock Dove, Colwmba Una, and in the 

 numerous varieties of its tame descendants, seems to be the 

 principal and permanent distinguishing mark that has come 

 down, through a long course of years, from the original stock of 

 our domestic poultry ; and so strongly does it reassert itself that 

 I have remarked that in instances where a Buff Cochin cock has 

 been turned down in a farmyard with the intention of improving 

 and enlarging the breed of common farmyard poultry, yet directly 

 the descendants of this cross were allowed to breed among them- 

 selves what has been the result ? First, the bar on the wing 

 made its appearance in a greater or less degree. Next, the cocks 

 became red and the hens brown, and both showed only a slight 

 trace of their Cochin ancestor in their fluffy sterns, and some- 

 what shorter tails. Gradually even these evidences of Cochin 

 blood disappeared, and in a very few generations the cocks 

 relapsed into the common Eed, and the hens into the common 

 Brown, birds of the country. 



