180 CLASS AVES. • 



footed, some smooth ; and, in fine, individuals may be found 

 which vmite the characters of many different races. 



The domestic coc/t; is that bird over which, above all others, 

 man has acquired the most ample dominion, the most complete 

 empire. This conquest, however, was, in all probability, not 

 achieved without much difficulty. To reduce to entire domes- 

 tication the wild inhabitant of solitary woods, was not among 

 the number of the easiest enterprises. It has, however, been 

 crowned with the most complete success. The epoch a of this 

 early domestication of the cock and hen, is lost in the night of 

 time. In no work of antiquity do we meet with the slightest 

 indication respecting the migration of these birds. It is not 

 at all in the order of probabilities, that heavy animals, the 

 conformation of whose wings and tail, affords no facilities for 

 a flight of any long duration, or for traversing the seas, should 

 have been able to transport themselves, of their own inclina- 

 tion, into countries far remote from the soil where they were 

 born in independence. What instinct could have operated 

 on these birds, to determine them, to quit the solitary woods 

 of torrid climes ? All birds that migrate at stated seasons, 

 quit our climates on the approach of winter. It is not 

 merely the refrigeration of the atm.osphere which determines 

 these migrations, but also the failure of those aliments by 

 which life is supported. But a similar necessity could not 

 have constrained the cock to abandon the latitudes of 

 Southern Asia. Had such been formerly the case, the same 

 causes would still subsist, and we should see the wild cocks 

 of Java, of Sumatra, of Ceylon, and of Hindostan perform- 

 ing regular and periodical voyages. 



If then, as there is every reason for believing, the tem- 

 perate climates of Asia, and the countries of Europe, did not 

 in ancient times possess the cock in a wild state, we must 

 ascend to the earliest epoch of navigation, and presume the 



