Chap. VII. SEXUAL DIFFERENCES. 251 



author, 44 "whole broods, scarcely feathered, stone-blind from 

 fighting; the rival couples moping in corners, and renewing 

 their battles on obtaining the first ray of light." With the 

 males of all gallinaceous birds the use of their weapons and 

 pugnacity is to fight for the possession of the females ; so that 

 the tendency in our Game chickens to fight at an extremely 

 early age is not only useless, but is injurious, as they suffer 

 so much from their wounds. The training for battle during 

 an early period may be natural to the wild Gfallus banhiva ; 

 but as man during many generations has gone on selecting 

 the most obstinately pugnacious cocks, it is more probable that 

 their pugnacity has been unnaturally increased, and unnaturally 

 transferred to the young male chickens. In the same manner, 

 it is probable that the extraordinary development of the comb 

 in the Spanish cock has been unintentionally transferred to the 

 young cocks ; for fanciers would not care whether their young 

 birds had large combs, but would select for breeding the adults 

 which had the finest combs, whether or not developed at an 

 early period. The last point which need here be noticed 

 is that, though the chickens of Spanish and Malay fowls are 

 well covered with down, the true feathers are acquired at an 

 unusually late age; so that for a time the young birds are 

 partially naked, and are liable to suffer from cold. 



Secondary Sexual Characters.— The two sexes in the parent- 

 form, the Gfallus banhiva, differ much in colour. In our domestic 

 breeds the difference is never greater, but is often less, and 

 varies much in degree even in the sub-breeds of the same main 

 breed. Thus in certain Game fowls the difference is as great 

 as in the parent-form, whilst in the black and white sub-breeds 

 there is no difference in plumage, Mr. Brent informs me that 

 he has seen two strains of black-breasted red Games, in which 

 the cocks could not be distinguished, whilst the hens in one were 

 partridge-brown and in the other fawn-brown. A similar case 

 has been observed in the strains of the brown-breasted red 

 Game. The hen of the "duck-winged Game" is "extremely 

 beautiful," and differs much from the hens of all the other Game 

 sub-breeds ; but generally, as with the blue and grey Game and 



44 Mowbray on Poultry, 7th edit. 1834, p. 13. 



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