194 A MONOGRAPH OF THE PHEASANTS 



Sebright bantams are in some ways the most artificial of all domestic breeds, for 

 the cock has completely assumed the characters of the hen. The markings of the 

 plumage, the short, pointed hackles and the short, stiff, central tail-feathers, show an 

 extreme specialization and departure from the ancestral conditions. In the silky fowls, 

 barbicels are almost absent from the feathers, giving the plumage a loose, silky or 

 hair-like texture. In the best-known breed of this race the feathers are pure white, 

 while the skin, the connective tissue separating the muscles and the periosteum covering 

 the bones, are a deep blue-black. When one has travelled in Malaysia and purchased 

 these birds for the first time for the table, the sight of the black tissue on their flesh 

 is most startling. They are nevertheless delicious eating. This character is not 

 appreciated by the general purchaser at home, so these birds have little value for the 

 market. In fact even in crosses with other races, while the silky character of the feather 

 is soon lost, the dark skin and other tissue is dominant and will do much to depreciate 

 the selling value of the crosses. 



Frizzled fowl, or ''pine-apple hens" as they are called in China, show the character 

 of every feather, even the flight feathers and tail, turning outward from the body. One 

 sees them everywhere in the East, especially in India, and indeed they are adapted only 

 to a warm, dry climate, owing to the lack of protection which their plumage affords, the 

 rain and cold easily reaching their skin. A radical, inheritable alteration of structure 

 is found in the rumpless fowls, in which the coccygeal vertebrae are absent. This 

 character is dominant, so that by crossing, any race of rumpless fowls may be produced. 

 Dumpies or creepers are fowls with legs so short that they can progress only with 

 difficulty. Bantam is a term applied to very diminutive fowls of any race. Even 

 Cochins have been bred down to less than a pound weight. The Japanese have a 

 bantam with enormous tail and comb, very prominent breast and absurdly short 

 legs. 



While shape is an easy factor to alter in the breeding of fowls, segregation of 

 colour, unlike the condition existing in doves, offers much greater difficulty. The 

 Japanese bantam is an unusual exception to the possibility of this localization of 

 colour— the bird in general being white, while the tail is black. Darwin accounts for 

 this by what he calls analogous variation, finding its explanation in the patterns and 

 colours, not only of the direct ancestor, but of other members of the genus and related 

 groups. Thus although the wild rock dove has not a white head, other species of 

 doves have, and this character is easy to obtain by selective breeding. A white head 

 is unknown among any species of wild Junglefowl or of pheasants, and a white-headed 

 domestic race has never to my knowledge been obtained. 



[The long-tailed fowls of Japan are popularly known as Yokohama, or Shinowara or 

 Phoenix Fowls. Much has been written about this breed, and in this literature there is 

 more of error than of truth. Authors have taken as their theses the supposed secret of 

 production of the long tail-feathers by constant stroking and gentle pulling, stimulating 

 in this way the abnormal growth. When one visits the home of these birds- in Japan, 

 it is found that such methods exist only in the ingenuity of their Caucasian inventors. 

 As a matter of fact there is no secret connected with these birds, and their great length 

 of feathers is as normal a product of development as the crests of other breeds. It has 

 been proved that constant gentle pulling and stroking of the feathers has a certain effect 



