406 
ON THE ORIGIN OF 
does not conclude till about 20 years after the death of 
Themistocles, from which it may be inferred, that if the 
later of the sacred historians do not mention poultry, it 
must have been from some other cause than their ignorance 
of the existence of these birds ; for, if the early Greek na- 
tions had received them prior to that period, either from 
Persia or from the more south-eastern countries of Asia, 
they could scarcely have been unknown in the intermediate 
regions inhabited by the Jews. 
It may be mentioned as a curious fact, illustrating the 
extensive distribution of domestic poultry, that when the 
South Sea Islands were first visited by Captain Cook, they 
were found well-stocked with these birds ; and the more 
recent, as well as more ample, narratives of the missionaries, 
have confirmed the statements of the great navigator re- 
garding the practice of cock-fighting in Otaheite, and other 
islands of Polynesia. 
" The most ancient, but certainly not the most innocent, 
game among the Tahitians,''"' says Mr Ellis, in his Polyne- 
sian Researches, " was the Jda-ti-to-raa-moa, literally, the 
causing fighting among fowls, or cock-fighting. The tra- 
ditions of the people state, that fowls have existed in the 
islands as long as the people, that they came with the first 
colonists by whom the islands were peopled, or that they 
were made by Taaroa at the same time that men were 
made. The traditions and songs of the islanders, connected 
with their amusements, are as ancient as any in existence 
among them. The Tahitians do not appear to have staked 
any property, or laid any bets, on their favourite birds, but 
to have trained and fouoht them for the sake of the grati- 
fication they derived from beholding them destroy each 
other. Long before the first foreign vessel was seen off 
their shores, they were accustomed to train and to fight 
their birds. The fowls designed for fighting were fed with 
