4 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
phanes never refers to it as actually introduced from Persia, but 
only as being of Persian parentage, and that it was abundant in 
his day is proved by the familiar manner in which he connects 
it with ‘‘ tradesfolk of every kind who jump up at daybreak and 
commence work when they hear its voice.” 
The material at our disposal enables us to say that about the 
seventh century B.c. (when for all we know to the contrary India 
was notin direct communication with other nations) the Common 
Fowl was well known from the Atlantic through Sardinia, Italy, 
Sicily, the whole of Northern Africa, Pheenicia, Mesopotamia, 
Persia, China (it first reached China in B.c. 1400), and Japan.* 
Care must be taken not to misunderstand the words Fowl 
and Hen appearing so often in the Old Testament, for these may 
be but translations of the Greek opus. The Talmud (dating from 
about B.c. 200 onwards) has several most curious references to 
our bird, and, as the work is a repository of still older traditions, 
it possesses some value to the student of ancient history. It is 
the authority for the translation of the Hebrew Burburim abusim 
(1 Kings vy. 3) into ‘‘ fattened hens”—that is, the Common 
Fowl. In another place (Shab. 35 b.) it says that as the hen 
sleeps in elevated places, usually over chimneys, the lower eyelid 
overlaps the upper, in order to protect the eyes against smoke! 
But for further information the reader must turn to Dr. Ginz- 
berg’s article in the ‘ Jewish Encyclopedia,’ iv. p. 188. 
Some commentators have held that Nergal, the idol of the 
men of Cush (2 Kings xvi. 30), had the form of a Cock, but the 
probability is that a well-known Hagle-headed Assyrian dolby has 
been confounded with this idol. 
It is, however, to ancient Egypt that we must turn for our 
best knowledge of the ancestry of the Fowl. Some of the 
Grecian and Roman written history, as that which tells us that 
in Egypt ‘‘ Yellow Cocks’’ were sacrificed to the jackal god 
Anubis, is not worth very much, for as a matter of fact there were 
no such sacrifices ever made. A little more attention can be 
* After carefully examining the statements for the occurrence of the 
Cock in ancient Mexican art, we do not hesitate in saying that a mistake has 
been made. A bird figured in Le Noir’s great work has so changed under the 
pencil of the lithographer that it certainly resembles a Cock, but in the 
original French text it is called an Eagle. 
