PART III. REPRODUCTION 



CHAPTER XXI 



TYPES, BREEDS, AND VARIETIES OF FOWLS 



Original type of the domestic fowl. The only known wild 

 birds of the same species as the domestic fowl are the little jungle 

 fowls of India and Ceylon. One of these, the Galliis Bankiva, is 

 by many considered the ancestor of all the numerous and diverse 

 races of fowls. This view rests more on argument than on evi- 

 dence, and the argument is far from conclusive. The strongest 

 points in its favor are that the jungle fowls are the only known 

 wild birds of the species, and that the Galhis Bankiva closely 

 resembles the domestic Black-Red Game Bantam. There is very 

 little accurate knowledge of the jungle fowls. Considering the 

 difficulty of getting full information in regard to matters more 

 recent than the first domestication of fowls and more ascertainable 

 than the facts as to the modern jungle fowls, the conclusions of 

 naturalists and the rather casual observations of fanciers and others 

 on this point, together with the few far from satisfactory experi- 

 ments made in India with jungle and domestic fowls and their 

 crosses, carry little weight with the careful student of pQultrj' cul- 

 ture. On either economic or evolutionary grounds it is much more 

 reasonable to assume that the domestic and the jungle fowls are 

 descended from a common ancestor, probably intermediate in size 

 between jungle fowls and ordinary unimproved domestic stock. 

 Unlike the wild ancestors of the duck, goose, and turkey, the little 

 jungle fowl is not economically attractive to man and does not 

 readily adapt itself to domestication or quickly improve in economic 

 qualities under domestic conditions. It seems to be an established 

 fact that, in the countries that they inhabit, the male jungle fowls 

 in freedom breed readily with domestic hens wandering from the vil- 

 lages. The female jungle fowl is naturally less bold in approaching 



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