2d6 FOWLS. Chap. VII 



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 Ont of 500 eggs, raised from various first crosses 

 and hybrids, between G. sonrteratii, bankiva, 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 structure 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. starrfeyii ; 

 this species approaches so closely (except in the colouring of the 

 comb) to the domestic fowl, that Messrs. Layard and Kellaert 16 would 

 have considered 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. stanleyn. Tins species, then, may in all pro- 

 bability 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 (orfurcatus) ) 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 I 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 be specifically distinct, and 

 were named G. aeneus. Mr. Blyth and others believe that the G. 

 temminckii™ (of which the history is not known) is a similar hybrid. 

 Sir J. Brooke sent me some skins of domestic fowls from Borneo, 

 and across the tail of one of these, as Mr. Tegetmeier observed, there 

 were transverse blue bands like those which he had seen on the tail- 

 feathers of hybrids from G. varius, reared in the Zoological Gardens. 

 This fact apparently indicates that some of the fowls of Borneo have 

 been slightly affected by crosses with G. varius, but the case may 

 possibly be one of analogous variation. I may just allude to the G. 

 ffigantsus, so often referred to in works on poultry as a wild species ; 

 but Marsden 19 the first deseriber, speaks of it as a tame breed ; and 

 the specimen in the British Museum evidently has the aspect of a 

 domestic variety. 



55 Mr. S. J. Salter, in 'Xatuial p. 113. 

 History Review,' April 1863, p. -276. 18 Described by Mi-. G. R. Gray, 



16 See also Mr. Layard's paper in ' Proc. Zoolog. Soc,' 1849, p. 62. 

 'Annals and Mag. of Xat. History,' 19 The passage from Marsden is 



2nd series, vol. siv. p. 62. given by Mr. Dixon in his 'Poultr) 



K See also Mr. Craw furd's 'Deserip- Book,' p. 176. No ornithologist now 



live Diet, of the Indian Inlands,' 1856, ranks this bud as a distinct species 



