2o6 A MONOGRAPH OF THE PHEASANTS 



judging by the part which the cock plays in Persian religion and mythology, and the 

 manner of reference to it in Zoroastrian literature, its advent must have antedated 

 considerably 600 B.C. 



The first mention of the cock in Grecian literature is by Theognia about 525 B.C., 

 but his image occurs on coins from the temple of Artemis at Ephesus of at least 700 B.C. 

 In the Metropolitan Museum in New York is a Corinthian Alabastron with a well- 

 executed cock, dated 650-600 B.C. As to the Chinese the fowl was primarily an edible 

 bird, and to the Persians an object of sacrifice, so to the later Greeks his fighting 

 qualities appealed strongest. To them he was primarily a game cock, and cock-fights 

 were the commonest representations on coins. While so common during the middle 

 and later periods, the cock does not enter into Greek mythology, neither is it mentioned 

 in either Hesiod or Homer, nor in those widespread legends or folklore tales which 

 originated in the early period of Greek development. 



The establishment of the cock in Greece was only a slight advance compared with 

 the steady progress along the line of the Iranian invasion, which carried the bird through 

 Bactria and Persia on into Scythia and Europe, stretching across finally to the British 

 Isles and spreading down from Gaul into Central Italy. Long before Greek colonists 

 carried the bird to south Italy, it had passed on to the northward, and was being carried 

 southward through Italy on the line of an independent advance. The first European 

 distribution of the cock was overland rather than by sea, or by coastal colonists. The 

 Romans found it well established in Gaul, England, and among the Germans. 

 The Greeks knew it as the Persian bird, the Romans called it gallus after their return 

 from Gaul. Caesar tells of the religious significance of the cock among the Gauls and 

 of its religious importance. Indeed we realize that no nation has more right to its 

 national bird than France, by constant association and symbolism from the earliest times 

 down to le chanticler daujourd'htti, the singer, the herald of the dawn. 



The Greeks carried the cock southward to the Phoenician cities, but only at a late 

 date did it become well established on the Syrian mainland. As early as 700 b.c. the 

 Assyrians and Babylonians received the fowl from the Medes and Persians, where it had 

 been known since 1000. We do not know where the Aramaeans first obtained the cock 

 — those natives of the lands stretching from the western frontiers of Babylonia to the 

 highlands of western Asia. But from them in the intercourse of later times the cock 

 was introduced to the Jews in Palestine about 200 B.C. 



Beside the dove and peacock there is no mention of domesticated fowls in the Old 

 Testament, with one or two very doubtful exceptions. Certainly during all the time 

 covered by that period the cock was quite unknown to the people as a whole. Both the 

 New Testament and the Talmud mention the cock, as in Mark xiii. 35: "Watch ye 

 therefore ; for ye know not when the master of the house cometh, at even, or at midnight, 

 or at the cock-crowing, or in the morning." And in Berakhoth 60 b : '' Praised be thou, 

 O God, Lord of the world, that gavest understanding to the cock to distinguish between 

 day and night." To-day the cock is the one sacrificial animal of the Jews ; at Yom 

 Kippur as an atonement offering — a cock by a man, a hen by a woman. And indeed in 

 ancient Palestine there was at first considerable opposition to the ordinary economic 

 breeding of fowls, by those who considered the birds as special objects of religious 

 significance. 



