333 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



The result is also precisely the same where a Black Polish 

 cock with a large crest (a breed of some antiquity) has been mated 

 with common poultry, and their progeny allowed to breed 

 together. The colour of the Polish cock is the first to disappear, 

 getting redder and redder, then the crest gets smaller and smaller 

 in each successive generation, until it gradually dies out altogether 

 and no trace of it remains, except a few feathers on the head, 

 almost an apology for a crest, which very occasionally reappear 

 from time to time. 



When we consider the enormous care and length of time it 

 must have taken to jDroduce birds of so essentially different types 

 as Cochins and Polish, and when we see how quickly these types 

 disappear altogether when interbred with common poultry, I 

 think this and the results above mentioned may be taken as 

 some evidence of at least the colour of the original stock of our 

 domestic poultry. 



With regard to comb, I have never among the numbers of game 

 fowls I have bred during the past twenty-five years ever seen a 

 single instance of anything but a single serrated comb, and even 

 when game is crossed with the Malay the pea comb of the latter 

 bird entirely disappears after the fifth generation. On the other 

 hand, I have often seen the single comb appear among such care- 

 fully bred birds as Sebrights and Black Bantams, both of which 

 varieties have exceedingly well defined double combs. 



I have also occasionally observed it in the various varieties of 

 the Hamburg fowl, all of which have very large double combs. 



Although the origin of the domestic cock is lost in the 

 obscurity of ages, yet it may possibly be gleaned from the above 

 experiences that originally the domestic cock sprang from a bird 

 somewhat resembling the Black-red game cock in colour, although 

 probably with some slight mottling on the breast, and with a 

 greater metallic brilliancy of plumage, with a red eye, small 

 wattles, and single serrated comb, dark or dark blue coloured 

 legs of medium length, with a rather drooping tail, and that its 

 general appearance was a little heavier than in the present highly 

 bred English game fowl ; that the hen was brown, marked some- 

 thing like a Black-red game hen, with a very small single serrated 

 comb, resembling the cock in general contour, and colour of 

 leg and eye, but darker than the present Black-red game hen, 

 and probably more inclining to grouse colour than to partridge. 



