270 POULTRY BREEDING 
that will cover the necessities of any poultrykeeper in 
any part of the country. These plans may be modified as 
to dimensions or interior arrangements to suit the owner. 
Any attempt to give plans of all the models of poultry 
houses in use would only mean confusion to the seeker 
after knowledge. 
POULTRY, ORIGIN OF BREEDS OF.—There has 
been much discussion concerning the origin of our do- 
mestic fowls. Scientists are agreed that the original 
wild fowl from which the domestic races sprang had its 
home in the far East—India, Ceylon, Java and the islands 
farther east, perliaps from one, possibly from all these 
sources. It was long thought that our domestic fowls 
were descended from Gallus Bankiva or jungle fowl of 
India, but later claims have been made for G. Stanleyii, 
G. furcatus and G. Sonnerati. As good an authority as 
Darwin concluded that the Asiatic fowls, such as Brah- 
mas and Cochins, were descended from a different variety 
of wild fowl, arguing that the feathers on the legs, the 
smaller pectoral muscles, the short wings and the differ- 
ences in the structure, could not point to any deliberate 
effort to make changes in these respects, as they were 
largely defects which a semi-civilized owner would not 
value. It has been noted by one writer that the earlier 
specimens of the Asiatic fowls were tame and quiet, and 
instead of seeking a secluded place to build nests sought 
rather open places above the general level of the sur- 
rounding land, these traits indicating that these breeds 
were descended from wild fowl which had lived for ages 
in an open country where the land was level and subject 
to overflow, remarking the difference in these respects 
between the Asiatic fowls and those with clean legs 
which were descended from the tree-roosting, nest-hiding 
