234 



FOWLS. 



Chap. VII 



in any domestic breed. 13 This species also differs greatly from the common 

 fowl, in the comb being finely serrated, and in the loins being destitute of 

 true hackles. Its voice is utterly different. It crosses readily in i n <i ia 

 with domestic hens; and Mr. Blyth 14 raised nearly 100 hybrid chickens; 

 but they were tender and mostly died whilst young. Those which were 

 reared were absolutely sterile when crossed inter se or with either parent. At 

 the Zoological Gardens, however, some hybrids of the same parentage were 

 not quite so sterile : Mr. Dixon, as he informed me, made, with Mr. Yarrell's 

 aid, particular inquiries on this subject, and was assured that out of 50 

 eggs only five or six chickens were reared. Some, however, of these half- 

 bred birds were crossed with one of their parents, namely, a Bantam, 

 and produced a few extremely feeble chickens. Mr. Dixon also procured 

 some of these same birds and crossed them in several ways, but all were 

 more or less infertile. Nearly similar experiments have recently been 

 • tried on a great scale in the Zoological Gardens with almost the same 

 result. 15 Out of 500 eggs, raised from various first crosses and hybrids, 

 between O. Sonneratii, banJciva, and varius, only 12 chickens were reared, 

 and of these only three were the product of hybrids inter se. From these 

 facts, and from the above-mentioned strongly-marked differences in struc- 

 ture between the domestic fowl and G. Sonneratii, we may reject this latter 

 species as the parent of any domestic breed. 



Ceylon possesses a fowl peculiar to the island, viz. G. Stanleyii; 

 this species approaches so closely (except in the colouring of the comb) to 

 the domestic fowl, that Messrs. E. Layard and Kellaert 16 would have con- 

 sidered it, as they inform me, as one of the parent-stocks, had it not been 

 for its singularly different voice. This bird, like the last, crosses readily 

 with tame hens, and even visits solitary farms and ravishes them. Two 

 hybrids, a male and female, thus produced, were found by Mr. Mitford to 

 be quite sterile : both inherited the peculiar voice of G. Stanleyii. This 

 species, then, may in all probability be rejected as one of the primitive 

 stocks of the domestic fowl. 



Java and the islands eastward as far as Flores are inhabited by G. 

 varius (or furcatus), which differs in so many characters— green plumage, 

 unserrated comb, and single median wattle— that no one supposes it to 

 have been the parent of any one of our breeds ; yet, as 1 am informed by 

 Mr. Crawfurd, 17 hybrids are commonly raised between the male G. varius 

 and the common hen, and are kept for their great beauty, but are 

 invariably sterile ; this, however, was not the case with some bred in 

 the Zoological Gardens. These hybrids were at one time thought to 



13 I have examined the feathers of 

 some hybrids raised in the Zoological 

 Gardens between the male G. Son- 

 neratii and a red game-hen, and these 

 feathers exhibited the true character 

 of those of G. Sonneratii, except that 

 the horny laminae were much smaller. 



14 See also an excellent letter on 

 the Poultry of India, by Mr. Blyth, in 



' Gardener's Chronicle,' 1851, p. 619. 



15 Mr. S. J. Salter, in < Natural His- 

 tory Keview,' April 1863, p. 276. 



16 See also Mr. Layard's paper to 

 ' Annals and Mag. of Nat. History, 

 2nd series, vol. xiv. p. 62. 



17 See also Mr. Crawfurd's ' Descrip- 

 tive Diet, of the Indian Islands,' 1856, 

 p. 113. 



