54 POULTRY BREEDING 
of excellence is the quality of “standing the gaff,” that 
is, the courage to face an opponent armed with sharp 
steel spurs in the cock pit and fight as long as it can 
stand. This brutal sport is not recognized by American 
poultry breeders as being a legitimate use to which to 
put fowls; therefore pit game fowls are not recognized. 
To distinguish between the games and game bantams 
fanciers usually call the game fowls which grow to ordi- 
nary size “Standard” games while they speak of game 
bantams as “bantams.”’ The only difference in the sev- 
eral varieties between the larger and the bantams is in 
the size. The “Standard” game weighs 5 to 6 pounds 
as to the cocks, the hens being a pound or more lighter. 
The game fowl has a history running back to the time 
the original Gallus Bankiva or G. ferruginous was domes- 
ticated by man. No doubt the original purpose of do- 
mestication was to breed the cocks for fighting, in accord- 
ance with the temper of men in those times, when war 
was the only work men had to do. The original game 
fowl was bred on fighting lines. It was set low on its 
legs, had a massive thigh and a deep muscular breast 
with a strong leg. In the quaint language of Gervaise 
Markham who wrote “The Fightinge-Cocke” in 1615: 
“Hee would bee of proude and uprighte shape with small 
head, like unto the Spar-hawke, a quick, large eye and a 
strong, crookt beak. The beame of his leg would be 
verie strong and, accordinge to his Plome (plumage), 
blew gray or yellow. For his colour the grey pyle, the 
red pyle, the yellow pyle, the redde with black breast, is 
esteemed best.” 
The red with black breast has continued to be the fa- 
vorite to this day. In 1849 the British Parliament passed 
an act forbidding cock-fighting and from that time the 
