1903.] ON JAPANESE LONG-TAILED FOWLS. 227 
1. Observations and Experiments on Japanese Long-tailed 
Fowls. By J. T. Cunninenam, M.A., F.Z.S 
[Received January Ist, 1903.] 
(Text-figures 41 & 42.) 
The enormous length of the tail-feathers in Japanese ‘“ Long- 
tailed Fowls” has been known to zoologists in this country for many 
years from the stuffed specimens in the hall of the Natural History 
Museum in London. These specimens were figured by the late 
G.J. Romanes in his ‘ Darwin and After Darwin,’ Part I., published 
in 1892. The figures represent fairly accurately two males of the 
breed, but the females are not represented at all, unless by indistinet 
figures in the background; and the accessories, instead of being 
dvawn from those actually present in the Museum case, are entirely 
imaginary, showing the birds in a state of perfect freedom in open 
country, a state which they never enjoy in Japan. Romanes’s 
figures are among a large number given as “ typical proofs of the 
efficacy of artificial selection ” : and it is the object of the present 
paper to show that this involves an assumption, with regard to 
this particular breed, which is by no means justified by the facts. 
The tails of the male specimens in the National Museum are 
6 to 9 feet in length, that is to say, the longest feathers are of 
that length. I have endeavoured, but without success, to obtain 
information concerning the history of these specimens. I believe 
they were reared in Japan, and they were probably sent from that 
country after death, either as skins or as stuffed specimens, 
There are some female specimens also, but in these the tails are 
scarcely longer than in the hens of ordinary breeds, 
The breed has been known to poultry-fanciers fora considerable 
time, and the following is the account of it given in ‘ The Book of 
Poultry’ by Lewis Wright, published in 1885 :— 
“ About the year 1878 there appeared in Germany, and a year or 
two later in England, fowls imported from Japan, whose principal 
peculiarity consisted in an immense length of tail and hackle- 
feathers. Some of these were exhibited as Yokohamas ; others, 
said to be superior in these points, were called Pheenix fowls. 
The tails of these specimens averaged about a yard in length, and 
the general appearance was not only that of a Game-fowl, but all 
the colours were Game colours, Whites, Piles, Duckwings, and 
later a few Black-Reds. The long plumage was, however, 
unique, and a fair idea of it may be gathered from the illus- 
tration. 
“Correspondence in the poultry journals brought out the fact 
that such birds had been occasionally exhibited as Japanese game 
so far back as about 1872. But it further appeared that in the 
Japanese Great National Museum at Tokio there were preserved 
two specimens. of an allied race in which the tail-feathers measure 
