JAVAN JUNGLEFOWL 261 
as are fighting cocks in other countries. The hen hybrids are killed, as they are of no 
value, but the cock birds when full grown are placed in quakes and are peddled in all 
the Javanese towns, a basket on either end of a pole balanced over the owner’s shoulders. 
Thus they are hawked about. The common kind—common in possessing no especially 
favoured type of plumage and only a mediocre crow, are sold for six or ten guldens. 
Pure white birds with better (or worse!) voices bring fifteen, while for a black bird of 
equal vocal ability thirty guldens are asked. Bekisars which have the head, comb and 
wattle like the ajam oelas or Javan Junglefowl, and the remainder of the plumage of the 
normal bekisar type, are very rare, and are known as vatum#a. One in Madura, just 
brought from Kangean, was offered me for seventy-five guldens. A gulden is equal to 
4o cents. or 1s. 8a. Connoisseurs recognize and appreciate fine points which mean 
nothing to an outsider, and I heard of a native chief who paid as much as two hundred 
guldens for a greatly prized bird, while there is a record of six hundred guldens paid for 
two birds, jet-black as to plumage, comb, face, wattles, legs, feet, and even iris, with 
very strong voices. 
A poor native who possesses a hybrid must content himself with keeping it near or 
in his house in its quake, and there listening to its constant outcries, or matching it and 
backing it against the vaunted crowing of some neighbour's fowl. But the native chiefs 
make the most of their high-priced bird’s vocal ability. 
In Soemanep, Madura, the last independent sultan died in 1885. His son has been 
made Regent under the Dutch authority, and this prince, whose name is Roden Ario 
Manahoe-Hoesoemo, is a connoisseur of hybrids or bekisars. He told me that the 
character most valued in the crowing of these birds is the loudness and the piercing 
quality; the crow must also be long-drawn-out and monosyllabic. 
A special apparatus is used to induce these birds to exercise their lungs. This 
consists of a very tall bamboo, which is erected in the compound, with a primitive sort 
of pulley as near the top as possible. The bekisar in its basket is attached to the end 
of a rope and pulled up to the pulley high in air, where it remains during the day, 
crowing lustily hour after hour. The prince had a prize bird pulled up for my benefit, 
and the bird began its crowing while the cage was whirling around on its jerky ascent. 
A village sometimes presents a curious aspect, and the visitor is startled by the 
sight of the baskets suspended to scores of swaying bamboos, while one’s ears are 
assailed throughout the day by the terrible raucous outcries from mid-air. This loud 
and penetrating crowing, while primarily valued for the means of gambling, is supposed 
to bring good luck to the house over which the vibrations pass. The wild Javan 
Junglefowl are not admired, because their crow, while of the correct timbre, is very 
faint compared with the lusty cries of the big hybrids. 
I learned through interpreters, that among the poorer classes another standard of 
vocal excellence is rife; where birds with a short, abrupt crow, more like that of the 
wild Javan bird, but with a persistence which would drive a white person insane, are 
valued over other individuals. In a smaller number of cases I found that birds with 
voices of indifferent power and persistence were kept solely for the beauty of their 
plumage, as indeed, in this respect, they far excel any breed of native poultry. 
The hybrids soon become tame, and are allowed to run freely about among the 
domestic poultry. The plumage of these hybrids is so unlike the colours and patterns 
