12 TIIK DOMESTIC FOWL. 



distinction between the feathered crests of birds in 

 general, and the combs of cocks, as to lead to a strong 

 suspicion that he was unacquainted with fowls with 

 topknots ; which he could hardly have avoided seeing 

 in the course of his unequalled opportunities for 

 research, had they existed in his day. " Certain birds," 

 says he, "have a crest; in some consisting of actual 

 feathers ; but that of cocks alone is peculiar, being 

 neither flesh, nor yet very different from flesh in its 

 nature." Neither can there be found a passage in the 

 classical authors which implies that the cocks and 

 hens of their day bore a feathered topknot. Cirrus is 

 the Latin word used by Pliny to denote the tuft of 

 feathers on the head of certain ducks, (fuligulae,) and 

 also properly adopted by Aldrovandi to express the top- 

 knot of Polish fowls. The earliest notice of crested 

 fowls that I am aware of, occurs in Aldrovandi, where 

 he says, " Our common country hen, all white, and 

 with a crest like that of a lark," a very useful com- 

 parison that will serve to distinguish such-like from 

 the Polish fowls ; the other, what he calls the Paduan, 

 evidently a variety of the Polish or Poland. 



If birds with such peculiarities were unknown to the 

 ancients, it will be asked through what agency they 

 have made their appearance in our days. Are they 

 new races, the result of judicious combination and 

 nurture, or of mere chance ? Not conceiving that they 

 are anything " new under the sun," although long un- 

 known to us, I answer, at once, No. The mercantile 

 •enterprize and trading voyages of the English, Dutch, 

 Spaniards, and Portuguese, are quite sufficient to 

 explain their arrival, without having recource to a new 

 creation. The lately— introduced Coehin-China fowl, 

 about which there is no mystery, is a case in point. 

 But it is not strange nor unlikely that gentlemen who 

 have succeeded in obtaining some exotic rarity, should 

 choose to conceal the source and the channel by which 

 it came into their hands, nor even take credit for hav- 

 ing themselves raised and generated a breed which 



