Chap. VII. THEIR HISTORY. 247 



Columella mentions a five-toed fighting breed, and some provincial 

 breeds ; but we know nothing more about them. He also alludes 

 to dwarf fowls"; but these cannot have been the same with our 

 Bantams, which, as Mr. Crawford has shown, were imported 

 from Japan into Bantam in Java. A dwarf fowl, probably the 

 true Bantam, is referred to in an old Japanese Encyclopaedia, 

 as I am informed by Mr. Birch. In the Chinese Encyclopaedia 

 published in 1596, but compiled from various sources, some of 

 high antiquity, seven breeds are mentioned, including what we 

 should now call jumpers or creepers, and likewise fowls with 

 black feathers, bones, and flesh. In 1600 Aldrovandi describes 

 seven or eight breeds of fowls, and this is the most ancient 

 record from which the age of our European breeds can be 

 inferred. The Cfallus Turcicus certainly seems to be a pencilled 

 Hamburgh ; but Mr. Brent, a most capable judge, thinks that 

 Aldrovandi "evidently figured what he happened to see, and 

 not the best of the breed." Mr. Brent, indeed, considers all 

 Aldrovandi's fowls as of impure breed; but it is a far more 

 probable view that all our breeds since his time have been 

 much improved and modified ; for, as he went to the expense 

 of so many figures, he probably would have secured character- 

 istic specimens. The Silk fowl, however, probably then existed 

 in its present state, as did almost certainly the fowl with frizzled 

 or reversed feathers. Mr. Dixon 34 considers Aldrovandi's Paduan 

 fowl as " a variety of the Polish," whereas Mr. Brent believes 

 it to have been more nearly allied to the Malay. The ana- 

 tomical peculiarities of the skull of the Polish breed were 

 noticed by P. Borelli in 1656. I may add that in 1737 one 

 Polish sub-breed, viz. the golden spangled, was known; but 

 judging from Albin's description, the comb was then larger, 

 the crest of feathers much smaller, the breast more coarsely 

 spotted, and the stomach and thighs much blacker: a 

 golden-spangled Polish fowl in this condition would now be of 

 no value. 



Differences in External and Internal Structure between the 



* 'Ornamental and Domestic Poul- Hamburghs, see Albin's 'Natural His- 

 try, 1847, p. 185; for passages translated tory of Birds,' 3 vols., with plates 

 irom Columella, see p. 312. For Golden 1731-38. 



