JAVAN JUNGLEFOWL 261 



as are fighting cocks in other countries. The hen hybrids are killed, as they are of no 

 value, but the cock birds when full grown are placed in quakes and are peddled in all 

 the Javanese towns, a basket on either end of a pole balanced over the owner's shoulders. 

 Thus they are hawked about. The common kind— common in possessing no especially 

 favoured type of plumage and only a mediocre crow, are sold for six or ten guldens. 

 Pure white birds with better (or worse !) voices bring fifteen, while for a black bird of 

 equal vocal ability thirty guldens are asked. Bekisars which have the head, comb and 

 wattle like the ajain oelas or Javan Junglefowl, and the remainder of the plumage of the 

 normal bekisar type, are very rare, and are known as rahtna. One in Madura, just 

 brought from Kangean, was offered me for seventy-five guldens. A gulden is equal to 

 40 cents, or 15. ^d. Connoisseurs recognize and appreciate fine points which mean 

 nothing to an outsider, and I heard of a native chief who paid as much as two hundred 

 guldens for a greatly prized bird, while there is a record of six hundred guldens paid for 

 two birds, jet-black as to plumage, comb, face, wattles, legs, feet, and even iris, with 

 very strong voices. 



A poor native who possesses a hybrid must content himself with keeping it near or 

 in his house in its quake, and there listening to its constant outcries, or matching it and 

 backing it against the vaunted crowing of some neighbour's fowl. But the native chiefs 

 make the most of their high-priced bird's vocal ability. 



In Soemanep, Madura, the last independent sultan died in 1885. His son has been 

 made Regent under the Dutch authority, and this prince, whose name is Roden Ario 

 Manahoe-Hoesoemo, is a connoisseur of hybrids or bekisars. He told me that the 

 character most valued in the crowing of these birds is the loudness and the piercing 

 quality; the crow must also be long-drawn-out and monosyllabic. 



A special apparatus is used to induce these birds to exercise their lungs. This 

 consists of a very tall bamboo, which is erected in the compound, with a primitive sort 

 of pulley as near the top as possible. The bekisar in its basket is attached to the end 

 of a rope and pulled up to the pulley high in air, where it remains during the day, 

 crowing lustily hour after hour. The prince had a prize bird pulled up for my benefit, 

 and the bird began its crowing while the cage was whirling around on its jerky ascent. 

 A village sometimes presents a curious aspect, and the visitor is startled by the 

 sight of the baskets suspended to scores of swaying bamboos, while one's ears are 

 assailed throughout the day by the terrible raucous outcries from mid-air. This loud 

 and penetrating crowing, while primarily valued for the means of gambling, is supposed 

 to bring good luck to the house over which the vibrations pass. The wild Javan 

 Junglefowl are not admired, because their crow, while of the correct timbre, is very 

 faint compared with the lusty cries of the big hybrids. 



I learned through interpreters, that among the poorer classes another standard of 

 vocal excellence is rife ; where birds with a short, abrupt crow, more like that of the 

 wild Javan bird, but with a persistence which would drive a white person insane, are 

 valued over other individuals. In a smaller number of cases I found that birds with 

 voices of indifi*erent power and persistence were kept solely for the beauty of their 

 plumage, as indeed, in this respect, they far excel any breed of native poultry. 



The hybrids soon become tame, and are allowed to run freely about among the 

 domestic poultry. The plumage of these hybrids is so unlike the colours and patterns 



