228 MR. J. T. CUNNINGHAM ON [ Mar. ale 
134 feet and 17 feet respectively, and a feather has been actually 
sent to France which measures 2 metres 85 centims. in length 
(say 94 feet). In 1884 Mr. Gerald Waller, of Twywell, imported a 
pen of these birds ; and from his statements we gather that they 
are known in Japan as Shinowaratao, Shirifuzi, or Sakawatao 
fowls and various other names. He says the very long-tailed 
ones are kept in high, narrow cages, always sitting on a perch 
covered with straw-rope, with no room to turn or get down, but 
with a food- and water-tin at each end of the perch. Three times 
daily they are lifted down for a few minutes’ exercise, their tails 
being carefully rolled up in paper cases to keep them from injury. 
The Japanese state that a tail has been measured 23 feet in length, 
and that the birds only moult the tail once in three years. This 
last statement is highly interesting. It is obvious that if a tail 
23 feet long were grown in one year, it must be at the rate 
of nearly three-quarters of an inch per day; and though 
Madame Bodinus states that she could see the tails grow daily, 
it is difficult to realise this; but experience will soon decide the 
oint. The birds which have reached Europe have never yet 
exceeded 5 or 6 feet in length of feather, which is not beyond the 
possibility of a single season, though it appears of an enormous 
length. The saddle-hackles of Mr. Waller’s birds are 16 inches 
in length; but it is manifest that such enormous feathers as 
reported from Japan could never be preserved under the ordinary 
conditions of an English poultry-yard. The feathers are not only 
long but extremely narrow and flexible, trailing low after the 
birds.” 
Mr. Wright does not mention the comb, but the illustration 
which he gives represents the male bird with what is called a pea- 
comb of small size and with small wattles, whereas the specimens in 
the National Museum have single vertical serrated combs and large 
wattles. The pea-comb is a rounded mass, with small rounded 
tubercles projecting from it. 
Mr. Frank Rice, of Acton, Suffolk, who breeds Yokohamas, 
gives in his circular the same illustration which appears in 
Mr. Wright’s book, and which therefore is certainly not a new 
figure from a living specimen. But in his description he states 
that the head should be neat and small, with evenly-set pea-comb. 
Tt would thus appear that the long-tailed fowls comprise varieties 
which differ in comb as well as in colour, though they seem to be 
all similar in the excessive growth of the tail, and probably are 
all grown in Japan under the same artificial treatment. 
The principal purpose of this paper is to discuss the causes by 
which the elongation or excessive growth of the tail has been 
produced. About two years ago, Prof. Lankester, in a letter to 
‘Nature,’ referred to the specimens in the Museum of which he is 
Director as ‘‘a magnificent sport,” comparing their exceptional 
character to what is called genius in human beings. On the 
other hand, in the ‘ Dictionary of Birds’ by Newton and Gadow, 
article “ Fea ther,” the length of the tail-feathers is attributed to 
