RED JUNGLEFOWL 193 
the ground, looking like a cassowary, or, with the tail-feathers trailing, actually like a 
kangaroo. The plumage is so scanty that,on the neck, breast and legs the skin shows 
through in many places as patches of bright red, this colour being apparently the effect 
of its direct exposure to light and air. These birds are excellent for table use, having 
an abundance of fine flavoured flesh, especially on the breast. In the aseel, the 
pugnacity of the cocks has been handed on, not only to the hens, but even to the chicks, 
who fight with one another at every opportunity. 
The birds known as Cochin China fowls, including brahmas and langshans, have 
been evolved along lines of great size and weight. Their name is a misnomer, as they 
originally came from Shanghai. The cocks sometimes reach sixteen or seventeen 
pounds. The plumage is soft and downy, and the feathering extends down to the toes, 
the wings and tail being so small as to be wholly functionless. In fact the feathering 
on the legs and feet has been carried to such an extreme that the normal scalation has 
given place to almost wing-like masses of quills, six and even eight inches in length. 
Brahmas did not come from the vicinity of that river, but were produced in the United 
States, by crossing a variety of Malay fowl with Cochins. By crossing the latter with 
Dominiques the Plymouth Rock was produced, a very prolific layer. 
Spanish fowls have giveh off leghorns, Andalusians, Minorcas and others. In the 
black Spanish, the originally small spot of white on the ear lappet has spread over the 
entire face, and the lappet itself increased in size until it is sometimes seven inches in 
length. and four in width. These birds and their subraces have been bred for egg 
production, and correlated with this the incubating instinct has been lost. In the place 
of the nestful of four to eight eggs which their feral ancestor laid once, or at most twice 
‘during the season, these domestic egg machines will lay well over two hundred eggs 
in a year. In Australia, four hundred and fifty hens laid over eighty thousand, nine 
hundred and fifty eggs, while in America there is a record of a single yard of six 
hundred fowls which averaged in the year one hundred and ninety-six large, perfect 
eggs for each bird! 
The falsely named Hamburghs and the crested fowls are also non-incubating, 
abnormal producers of eggs. The combs of the former are double. In the latter, on 
the contrary, the great development of the crest has almost, and in some cases wholly 
obliterated the comb. The wattles too are absent in some forms, their places being 
taken by tufts of feathers. Almost the only changes produced by man in the 
domesticated races of fowl are those of general proportion and colour. But in the 
crested fowl the cranium itself has undergone a remarkable change, the front part of 
the skull forming a prominent rounded swelling, which contains a large part of the 
brain. Only occasionally is this remarkable structure wholly ossified. 
The Dorking fowl has an extra toe on each foot. This is probably a monstrosity 
and not a reversion to the real pentadactyl foot of the ancestors of birds. In one of 
the latest contributions (Ghigi, ‘Sul Significato Morpologico della Polidattilia nei 
Gallinacei,” 1901) to this subject, the author’s summary is as follows: ‘Summing up, 
it seems to me conclusive that the extra toe of chickens, homologous with that 
sometimes observed in other birds, must not be attributed to a doubling of the first 
toe, but to the teralogical development of an organ (fvea//uce) which in the ancestors 
existed in a rudimentary state.” 
VOL, II” . GG 
