Tl 



FANCIERS' JOURNAL AND POULTRY EXCHANGE. 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by Joseph M. 

 Wade, in the office of the Lihrarian of Congress, at Washington. 



"fjf AN0IER3' Journal and l^jouLTEY^xciuNaE, 



JOSEPH M. WADE, Editor and Proprietor. 



Published Weekly at 39 North Ninth Street, Philadelphia. 



SUBSCRIPTION. 



Per Annum „ $2 50 



Six Copies, one year, 12 00 



Specimen Copies, by mail 10 



ADVERTISEMENTS 



From reliable parties, on any subjects interesting to Fanciers, will be 

 inserted at 10 cents per line, set solid ; if displayed, 15 cents per line of 

 space will be charged ; about 12 words make a line, and 12 lines make an 

 inch of space. 



..16 20 

 ..32 40 



1 inch of space, set solid Sfl 20, 



1 column, about 108 lines, set solid 10 80, 



1 page, 216 lines, solid 21 60, 



Advertisements from unknown parties must be paid for in advance. 



Sherhax & Co., Pkinteks, Philadelphia. 



DAVENPORT POULTRY CLUB. 



At the annual meeting of the Davenport Poultry Club, 

 the other evening, the re-elected President, Rev. E. Miller, 

 read the following paper on the History of Domestication 

 of Fowls. It is undoubtedly one of the best, if not the 

 best, paper on the subject extant, and is filled with knowl- 

 edge, humor, and good sense. It will interest everybody. 



This is the age of organization. The great thinkers and 

 doers that anciently stood in isolated grandeur above the 

 low plane of the uneducated masses, did great things by 

 means of authority. But since the masses have become more 

 intelligent, equal and free, organization, instead of authority, 

 holds the sceptre that concentrates the efforts of the people. 



Organization, at once the exponent of equality and power, 

 has also become a modern propensity. Two men can scarcely 

 go fishing or hunting, nowadays, without articles of incor- 

 poration, and pigs are fatted and colts trained according to 

 constitution and by-laws. Coal-miners wield the pick, and 

 boot-blacks " put on the shine," under the auspices of State 

 and national conventions. Literature, art, and science do 

 duty for melons, potatoes, and onions. History and philos- 

 ophy solemnize the nuptials of labor and capital; and the 

 lay of the poet and the lay of the hen blend in the strains 

 of modern classics. 



The propensity to organize is justly gratified in the organ- 

 ization of "The Davenport Poultry Club," inasmuch as it 

 seeks to give utility and taste to the recreations of its mem- 

 bers. It is fitting, too, that the literature of this body 

 should contain a history of poultry domestication. 



The earliest valid point of such history is cotemporary 

 with Plato and Aristotle, 350 years before the Christian era. 

 There are, nevertheless, many allusions in sacred history, 

 that, assisted by probable argumentation, lead us to think 

 that poultry became domesticated at a much earlier date. 

 The passage in Ecclesiastics (12 : i) probably refers to cock- 

 crowing as "the voice of the bird." And in 1 Kings (4: 23) 

 the phrase " fatted fowl " must refer to domestic fowl of some 



kind. Job, who was probably cotemporary with Jacob, 

 refers (38:36) to instinctive intelligence; and according to 

 the Latin translation, instances gallainaceous fowl as its 

 embodiment. ("Quis posuit in Viscerabus sapientiam, vel 

 quis didit galls intelligentiam.") 



. Passing backward along the course of emigration into 

 Persia, to the "first families" of post-diluvian civilization, 

 we find a man, the oldest son of Japhet, and first grandson 

 of Noah, bearing the name "Gomer." This name, accord- 

 ing to Hebrew scholars, is borrowed from the poultry-yard, 

 and is the name of the veritable " cock that crew in the 

 morn" during the dark and lonely wanderings of the ark. 



But we may support this probability with a theory never 

 before, to our knowledge, advanced, viz. : That the divisions 

 of time are based upon periodic phenomena of nature; and as 

 the seasons first indicated the year, the moon suggested 

 months, the sun gave night and day, nothing could have 

 suggested the watches and hours except the crowing of the 

 cock. The apparently indiscriminate application of the 

 term "hour" to watches of 180 minutes, and hours of 60 

 minutes, sometimes occurring in the New Testament, fur- 

 ther evinces that the crowing was the basis of these time 

 divisions, since this crowing takes place at intervals of 180 

 minutes from 6 o'clock until midnight, and of 60 minutes 

 thence till dawn. Now if we inquire of the ancients as to 

 how they came by these smaller time divisions, we get no 

 reply, except that Heroditus says the Greeks obtained them 

 from the Babylonians. And if we look into sacred history, 

 we find the first mention of "hours" in the Book of Daniel, 

 speaking of events in the city of Babylon. Daniel and other 

 Jewish captives were the first Jews to use the term hour, 

 and they doubtless learned this time division during the 

 captivity. 



But the first settlements of the sons of Noah were in the 

 country of Babylon, and at an early date the families of 

 Japhet emigrated to the Greek Archipelago. These built 

 houses and cities; were men of manufacturing and commer- 

 cial habits, and not only found great use for the minor time 

 indicator, but in the stability of their dwellings, leisure for 

 the domestication and care of fowls ; while the roving life of 

 the tribes of Shem and Ham precluded the society of poultry, 

 though it utilized the camel, sheep, kine, &c. The presump- 

 tion exists, that nearly all of our domestic animals and birds 

 were in the domestic state during the life of Noah, if not 

 much earlier. 



Passing downward to the Greeks, Romans, and Jews, 

 very common and familiar mention is made of domestic 

 poultry. The peacock, guinea-fowl, goose, and hen were 

 common among the Greeks. Four hundred and fifty years 

 before the Christian era, cock-fighting, which had been a 

 common pastime in Greece and India, was adopted by the 

 Romans. Christ referred in the most familiar way to the 

 " hen gathering her brood under her wings." And while 

 the theologians "kept the key of knowk dge," he taught the 

 people the tenderness of his compassion by this well-under- 

 stood illustration. And when he warned Peter of his fall, 

 he designated the time by the ever reliable instinct of the 

 feathered chronometer. 



As the game-cock was both a source of amusement, for 

 fighting, and a reliable indicator of the night watches, it is 

 easy to believe he accompanied the Roman armies to Prance 

 and England. The first record of cock-fighting in England 

 is that under Henry II ; it was practiced by school-boys cm 

 Shrove Tuesday, but afterwards it became a favorite amuse- 



