THE 110MESTIC FOWL. 9 



attempts to do this, appear to have been made by Son- 

 nerat, and to have been followed up by succeeding 

 French writers, whose errors are glaring, and in whose 

 praise little oan be said. Reaumur, whose writings are 

 really philosophical and valuable, devoted his inquiries 

 to more practical objects, but Sonnerat was merely a 

 blind leader of the blind, if there is justice in the 

 criticism of Mr. Swainson, who pronounces that " Son- 

 nerat's works, although often cited by the French 

 authors, are very poor ; the descriptions vague, and 

 the figures, particularly of the birds, below mediocrity." 

 Buffon, who did not die till 1788, had therefore an 

 opportunity of adopting Sonnerat's jungle fowl as the 

 parent of cocks and hens, and his vivid imagination 

 made him very likely to have adopted so apparently 

 clear an account, ready telegraphed for his reception. 

 But instead of that, he speaks hesitatingly and doubt- 

 fully of the derivation of our domestic fowls from wild 

 cocks, and seems to despair of indicating their origin. 

 He says, "Amidst the immense number of different 

 breeds of the gallinaceous tribe, how shall we deter- 

 mine the original stock ? So many circumstances have 

 operated, so many accidents have concurred ; the 

 attention, and even the whim of man have so much 

 multiplied the varieties, that it appears extremely dif- 

 ficult to trace them to their source." 



A difficulty, which speaks volumes, is, that those 

 birds which have been pointed out as the most pro- 

 bable ancestors of the domestic fowl, do not appear to 

 be more tameable than the partridge, the American 

 grouse, or the golden pheasant ; moreover, so remark- 

 able an appendage as the horny expansion of the feather 

 stem, as seen in Sonnerat's cock, would, according to 

 what is generally supposed to take place, be increased 

 rather than diminished and obliterated by domestica- 

 tion ; and even if got rid of by any course of breeding 

 for a few generations, would be sure, ultimately, to 

 reappear. 



Still, our own cocks and hens must have had some 

 1* 



