496 The Illustrated Book of Poultry. 



wild state, we may confidently look at it as the parent of at least the Game breeds." Then 

 replying to the hypothesis that some other wild species may have been the parent of other breeds, 

 and still exist undiscovered or have become extinct, he considers extinction at least "an improbable 

 hypothesis, seeing that the four known species have not become extinct in the most ancient and 

 thickly -peopled regions of the East." He ends with the general argument that " the four known 

 species of Callus, when crossed with each other, or when crossed (with the exception of Callus 

 Bankivd) with the Domestic Fowl, produce infertile hybrids ;" but finally admits that "we have not 

 such good evidence with fowls as with pigeons of all the breeds having descended from a single 

 primitive stock." This last sentence speaks the truly scientific man, and stands in amusing con- 

 trast with the ignorant dogmatism of some who, without a tithe of Mr. Darwin's knowledge, have 

 written as if the whole matter could be settled by their bare affirmation, and even gone out of their 

 way to speak in terms of deliberate insult of such as had the misfortune to be unable to agree 

 with them. With such we have nothing to do — they are beyond conviction ; but for those who 

 honestly seek further facts upon which to reason, we will proceed to state such as have come under 

 our own notice, and seem to us to furnish strong reasons against some of Mr. Darwin's conclusions. 

 We say some of them, because they by no means tend to prove that there was not one primitive 

 stock ; though they do, in our opinion, make it exceedingly doubtful whether that stock was 

 the Callus Banhiva. 



In the first place, then, the supposed sterility of Sonnerat hybrids seems to us to rest on very 

 insufficient data, and is indeed altogether disproved by the experience of Mr. Douglas above 

 quoted. Mr. Blyth himself is stated to have raised nearly 100 hybrids at Calcutta — a most 

 amazing number if the races are alien, as all who have tried to produce pheasant hybrids are well 

 aware. Those which were reared, it is true, are stated to have been " absolutely sterile," whether 

 bred inter se or with either parent, and to have been very tender, mostly dying young. But this 

 weakness of constitution we have seen to be shared by the/«r^ Sonnerat in the experience of both 

 Mr. Parr and Mr. Nevile; while, on the other hand, Mr. Douglas found them both hardy, and the 

 hybrids prolific. These contradictions appear at first sight inexplicable, but vanish on con- 

 sideration. Mr. Parr and Mr. Nevile kept them in 'confinement, one gentleman even giving them 

 warmed houses ; while the other was a skilled poultry -fancier and breeder, thoroughly acquainted 

 with the rearing both of game and poultiy, and who kept and reared his as nearly as possible in 

 their free, wild condition. We have already seen the effect of such treatment in the case of delicate 

 domestic breeds (see Mr. Teebay's notes on Spanish), and we get a most significant confirmation of 

 our supposition as to the cause of such surprising differences of experience, in Mr. Parr's own old 

 cock, which, ailing as he was, revived directly he was turned out in the woods, although the snow was 

 on the ground. Stronger corroboration there could in fact hardly be ; but since his notes above 

 were written, we have asked Mr. Douglas specially as to the prolificacy of the hybrids, and he 

 replies as follows : — " The hybrids, or cross-breds, with me were very prolific — hardly ever a bad 

 egg. They crossed all ways, as I had them for years and crossed them anyhow — or rather they 

 crossed themselves — and how they bred I scarcely know ; but I do know there were but few eggs 

 failed to have chicks in them." Again, it is admitted that three chickens were actually reared at 

 the Gardens from hybrids crossed inter sc ; and small as this number is, breeding i7iter se at all is a 

 fact so strong, as is in nearly all other cases held sufficient to constitute unity of species ; while we 

 have shown the strongest reasons for believing that the want of greater fertility, and the barrenness 

 in other cases, may have been owing to too artificial treatment. The men to make such experi- 

 ments are men like Mr. Douglas, who have made the ways and habits of fowls the special study 

 of their lives, and who think nothing of disappointments which would throw others possessing only 



