December ig, 1901] 



iVA TURE 



15: 



blind unless the skin is cut away. The ear lobe, enlarged 

 in the portrait to many times its natural size, has been 

 again increased, becoming in some cases more than seven 

 inches in length by four or five in breadth when spread 

 out, and offering an area of some thirty square inches. 

 These characters have been carried to such an excess 

 that the breed has become altered from an abundant 

 layer of large eggs into a practically useless variety, 

 and at many shows where they were formerly the most 

 numerous birds exhibited they are now absent, having 

 been, as it were, improved by the fanciers almost out of 

 existence, their laying qualities and utility having almost 

 entirely disappeared. At the Crystal Palace show recently 

 held, where nearly 4000 fowls were exhibited, less than a 

 dozen Spanish put in an appearance, and at the show 

 just opened at the Alexandra Palace, where there are 

 no less than 28 1 classes for the different varieties of 

 fowls, Spanish are conspicuous by their absence. 



Darwin in his list enumerates thirteen varieties of 

 fowls as known to him, namely Game, Malay, Cochin, 

 Dorking, Spanish, Hamburg, Polish, Bantam, Rumpless, 

 Creepers, Frizzled, Silky and Sooties, with their sub- 

 breeds, which he also mentions. In the last Crystal 

 Palace show we had no less than 240 classes, which in- 

 cluded all the varieties shown. The old English Dorking 

 breed was the one which has been least changed or modi- 

 fied during the last fifty years, having been merely 

 increased in size. Cochins, which were imported, not, as 

 the name implies, from Cochin China, but from Shanghai, 



f skull of crested fowl. 



many hundred miles distant, were originally character- 

 ised by profuse fluffy plumage, very small wings, which 

 rendered them almost incapable of flight, a small amount 

 of feather on the tarsus or scaly part of the leg and on the 

 foot. This breed, with all the others, was regarded by 

 Darwin as descended from one wild species, the 

 jungle fowl, Galltis ferrugineus. This was one of 

 the very few points in which I differed from my 

 honoured master. I believe that the Cochin descended 

 from another species of wild Callus, which in consequence 

 of its scant power of flight had all passed into a state 

 of domestication and which has long ceased to exist as a 

 wild bird. My opinions are based upon the fact that 

 there is considerable structural difference between the 

 Cochin and the varieties of the Gallns ferruaineus In 

 the Cochin, the axis of the occipital foramen is 

 greatly elongated perpendicularly ; in the ordinary fowl 

 its long axis is horizontal. In the Cochin, as originally 

 introduced, a deep median furrow is visible down the 

 frontal bone, which is not present in other fowls. These 

 points could not have been produced by artificial selec- 

 tion. Then again, the voice of the bird was utterly dis- 

 tinct from that of any descendants of Gallus ferrugineus. 

 The habits of the birds, as originally introduced, were 

 exceedingly distinct from those of our domesticated 

 species. At the present time the Cochin threatens to 

 become as nearly extinct in England as the -Spanish, 



NO. 1677, VOL. 65] 



having been bred for fancy points, and the tendency to 

 produce feather on the lower extremities has been so 

 enormously exaggerated that in prize specimens the feet 

 are as nearly full plumaged as the wings. 



In Darwin's time one of the most remarkable breeds 

 raised by fanciers was the crested, or, as they were then 

 called, the Polish breeds, characterised by a very large 

 tuft of feathers on the top of the head. I paid much 

 attention to these breeds from the singular anatomical 

 peculiarity which they offered ; the cranium became 

 greatly modified, the crest taking its rise from a very 

 large bony protuberance of the frontal bones. This in 

 well-developed specimens contained more than half the 

 bram, which, instead of retaining its normal form, be- 

 came of an hour-glass shape. Specimens of these 

 remarkable skulls were shown by me at the Zoological 

 Society in 1856, figured by Darwin in " Variation" and in 

 my " Poultry Book," from which the accompanying en- 

 graving is reproduced. These birds have almost gone out 

 of fashion, there being now no classes for them at the 

 Crystal or Alexandra Palace shows. 



If we compare the varieties of poultry as shown at 

 present with those that existed in Darwin's time, we find 

 that the offer of prizes, often of great value, at poultry 

 shows, has induced, not only the formation of in- 

 numerable new breeds obtained by crossing and selec- 

 tion, but has led to the exaggeration of the salient points 

 of every variety, as far as is actually possible. If I may 

 presume to quote my own book, on " Table and Market 

 Poultry," I would state ; " The fancier has not even a 

 standard of beauty which he regards as final. The 

 greater the extent to which he can make the specimens 

 he produces excel others in fancy points is the object at 

 which he aims ; consequently hideous monstrosities are 

 not unfrequently produced and exhibited, the only advan- 

 tage of which, from a scientific or practical point of 

 view, is to prove the extent to which living organisms 

 are variable under the influence of artificial as opposed 

 to natural selection." W. B. Tegetmeier. 



FRESH LIGHT ON THE ANTARCTIC.^ 



THIS is the second narrative of the cruise of the 

 Soul/iern Cross and of the first winter spent on 

 Antarctic land. It is written for the same class of the 

 general public as its predecessor by the commander of 

 the expedition. Mr. Bernacchi is, however, a man of 

 scientific training, and although the exuberance of his 

 literary style is sometimes in excess of the strict require- 

 ments of science and some of his words do not occur in 

 the dictionary, we are able to gather a few new facts and 

 some corrected impressions from his book. Unfortu- 

 nately, the book has been written in a hurry, for which 

 there is at least the excuse that the author has set out 

 once more to the South Polar regions ; but in one place 

 he acknowledges, and in many places leaves it to be 

 discovered, that he was unable to consult his companions 

 on points that require some explanation. 



It is not everyone who can write a book so as to exclude 

 the irrelevant and make the essential attractive to the 

 average reader ; yet this, we think, should be the chief 

 justification of a narrative, and especially a second 

 narrative, of an expedition that was in a considerable 

 degree scientific. 



The book is divided into two parts, "Narrative" and 

 " Scientific." The narrative need only be referred to in 

 order to remind the reader of the necessary dates which 

 are usually difficult to gather in such works. The Southern 

 Cross left London on August 22, 1898, reached Madeira 

 on September 4, left on the 5th, touched at St. Cruz on 



1 "To the South Polar Regions. E.\psdition of 1898-1900." By I.ouis 

 Bernacchi, F.R.G.S. Illustrated from photographs taken by the author. 

 Pp. xvi+343. (London : Hurst and Blackett, Ltd., 1901) Price12j.net. 



