RED JUNGLEFOWL 193 



the ground, looking like a cassowary, or, with the tail-feathers trailing, actually like a 

 kangaroo. The plumage is so scanty that on the neck, breast and legs the skin shows 

 through in many places as patches of bright red, this colour being apparently the effect 

 of its direct exposure to light and air. These birds are excellent for table use, having 

 an abundance of fine flavoured flesh, especially on the breast. In the aseel, the 

 pugnacity of the cocks has been handed on, not only to the hens, but even to the chicks, 

 who fight with one another at every opportunity. 



The birds known as Cochin China fowls, including brahmas and langshans, have 

 been evolved along lines of great size and weight. Their name is a misnomer, as they 

 originally came from Shanghai. The cocks sometimes reach sixteen or seventeen 

 pounds. The plumage is soft and downy, and the feathering extends down to the toes, 

 the wings and tail being so small as to be wholly functionless. In fact the feathering 

 on the legs and feet has been carried to such an extreme that the normal scalation has 

 given place to almost wing-like masses of quills, six and even eight inches in length. 

 Brahmas did not come from the vicinity of that river, but were produced in the United 

 States, by crossing a variety of Malay fowl with Cochins. By crossing the latter with 

 Dominiques the Plymouth Rock was produced, a very prolific layer. 



Spanish fowls have given off leghorns, Andalusians, Minorcas and others. In the 

 black Spanish, the originally small spot of white on the ear lappet has spread over the 

 entire face, and the lappet itself increased in size until it is sometimes seven inches in 

 length and four in width. These birds and their subraces have been bred for egg 

 production, and correlated with this the incubating instinct has been lost. In the place 

 of the nestful of four to eight eggs which their feral ancestor laid once, or at most twice 

 during the season, these domestic egg machines will lay well over two hundred eggs 

 in a year. In Australia, four hundred and fifty hens laid over eighty thousand, nine 

 hundred and fifty eggs, while in America there is a record of a single yard of six 

 hundred fowls which averaged in the year one hundred and ninety-six large, perfect 

 eggs for each bird ! 



The falsely named Hamburghs and the crested fowls are also non-incubating, 

 abnormal producers of eggs. The combs of the former are double. In the latter, on 

 the contrary, the great development of the crest has almost, and in some cases wholly 

 obliterated the comb. The wattles too are absent in some forms, their places being 

 taken by tufts of feathers. Almost the only changes produced by man in the 

 domesticated races of fowl are those of general proportion and colour. But in the 

 crested fowl the cranium itself has undergone a remarkable change, the front part of 

 the skull forming a prominent rounded swelling, which contains a large part of the 

 brain. Only occasionally is this remarkable structure wholly ossified. 



The Dorking fowl has an extra toe on each foot. This is probably a monstrosity 



and not a reversion to the real pentadactyl foot of the ancestors of birds. In one of 



the latest contributions (Ghigi, " Sul Significato Morpologico della Polidattilia nei 



Gallinacei," 1901) to this subject, the author's summary is as follows: ''Summing up, 



it seems to me conclusive that the extra toe of chickens, homologous with that 



sometimes observed in other birds, must not be attributed to a doubling of the first 



toe, but to the teralogical development of an organ {prealhtce) which in the ancestors 



existed in a rudimentary state." 



VOL. n c c 



