Chap. VII. EXTERNAL DIFFERENCES. 259 



and two (an old Cochin cock and Malay hen) had 17 feathers. The rumpless 

 fowl has no tail, and in a bird which I kept alive the oil-gland had aborted ■ 

 but this bird, though the os coccygis was extremely imperfect, had a 

 vestige of a tail with two rather long feathers in the position of the outer 

 caudals. This bird came from a family where, as I was told, the breed 

 had kept true for twenty years; but rumpless fowls often produce 

 chickens with tails. 62 An eminent physiologist 63 has recently spoken of 

 this breed as a distinct species ; had he examined the deformed state of the 

 os coccyx he would never have come to this conclusion ; he was probably 

 misled by the statement, which may be found in some works, that tailless 

 fowls are wild in Ceylon ; but this statement, as I have been assured bv 

 Mr. Layard and Dr. Kellaert, who have so closely studied the birds of 

 Ceylon, is utterly false. 



The tarsi vary considerably in length, being relatively to the femur con- 

 siderably longer in the Spanish and Frizzled, and shorter in the Silk and 

 Bantam breeds, than in the wild Q. bankiva ; but in the latter, as we have 

 seen, the tarsi vary in length. The tarsi are often feathered. The feet in 

 many breeds are furnished with additional toes. Golden-spangled Polish 

 fowls are said 64 to have the skin between their toes much developed • Mr 

 Tegetmeier observed this in one bird, but it was not so in one which 1 

 examined. In Cochins the middle toe is said 65 to be nearly double the 

 length of the lateral toes, and therefore much longer than in Q. bankiva or 

 m other fowls ; but this was not the case in two which I examined. The 

 nail of the middle toe in this same breed is surprisingly broad and flat but 

 m a variable degree in two birds which I examined; of this structure in 

 the nail there is only a trace in G. bankiva. 



The voice differs slightly, as I am informed by Mr. Dixon, in almost 

 every breed. The Malays 66 have a loud, deep, somewhat prolonged crow 

 but with considerable individual differences. Colonel Sykes remarks that 

 the domestic Kulm cock in India has not the shrill clear pipe of the 

 English bird, and " his scale of notes appears more limited." Dr. Hooker 

 was struck with the " prolonged howling screech » of the cocks in Sikhim. 6 ? 

 Ihe crow of the Cochin is notoriously and ludicrously different from that 

 oi the common cock. The disposition of the different breeds is widely 

 cbflerent, varymg from the savage and defiant temper of the Game-cock to 

 the extremely peaceable temper of the Cochin. The latter, it has been 

 asserted, " graze to a much greater extent than any other varieties." The 

 Spanish fowls suffer more from frost than other breeds. 



Before we pass on to the skeleton, the degree of distinctness 

 of the several breeds from Q. bankiva ought to be noticed. Some 



6i Mr. Hewitt, in Tegetmeier's ' Poul- Tegetmeier's 'Poultry Book,' 1866, 

 try Book, 1866, p. 231 p. 41. On Cochins grazing, idem, p. 46. 



•T™ \j T' , m Brown " Se( l ual - d ' s 66 Ferguson on 'Prize Poultry,' p 



Journal de Phys.,' torn. n. p. 361. 87. 



325 



65 



^ Dixon a ■ Ornamental Poultry/ p. e 7 Col gykeg in , Proc> Zoolog- ^ 



" iT> ,, _ . , , , 1832, p. 151. B Dr. Hooker's ' Himalayan 



Poultry Chronicle,' vol. i. p. 485. Journals,' vol. i. p. 314. 



s 2 



