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The Illustrated Book of Poultry. 
and the bird together probably came to us from Persia ; the medium of introduction being most 
likely the Phoenician traders who visited the island for tin. To this theory we may frankly admit 
there are serious objections, the chief of which is the fact that no absolutely distinct and certain 
reference to cock-fighting can be found in English history (so far as we are aware) before the reign 
of Henry II.; but as it is really impossible to decide the matter definitely, further argument may 
well be spared. 
When we leave Britain, the ancestry of the Game fowl becomes still more uncertain. The 
ancient Lydians, as well as the Persians, fought cocks, and probably from them the Greeks and 
Romans borrowed the diversion. Bearing in mind the close connection in some other matters 
between the Indo-Persian nations, we are not surprised to find that both in the present Indian 
Empire, and throughout the whole adjacent archipelago, the people are not only still passionately 
attached to cock-fighting, but that their traditions carry it back to the remotest antiquity. Hence 
many naturalists have attributed to the present Gallus Bankiva , or wild jungle-fowl of India, both 
the origin of the Game fowl and of all other domesticated breeds, for which theory there are 
strong reasons besides the general resemblance of that bird to the present Black-breasted Red Game; 
but we confess that, although at one time much inclined to adopt this view, and familiar with the 
arguments by which it is supported, greater acquaintance with the actual facts of poultry-breeding, 
and with the accounts of trustworthy travellers in India, make us less and less satisfied 
with it as affording adequate explanations of either, even after the amplest weight has been given 
to every detail of the Darwinian argument. It is a singular fact that Mr, Darwin himself writes 
with much greater modesty on these subjects than some of his more ignorant followers ; certain 
ot whom have professed to settle the matter in an ex cathedra manner which, in either practical 
poultry-fanciers or really intelligent naturalists, will simply excite the ridicule it deserves, which- 
ever way the balance of actual argument (with which such writers as we allude to do not deal) 
may ultimately incline. There is much to be said for this view, no doubt ; and Mr. Darwin has 
ably said it ; but some of the arguments on the other side do not seem known to him. One of 
these is the fact that, while black is a conspicuous element in the colour of the Gallus Bankiva, the 
direction of that reversion on which he lays so great stress seems to be towards a red, rusty, or brown 
colour alone, with a distinct tendency to eliminate black altogether except in the tail. This fact 
is known to all who have much practical acquaintance with poultry-breeding and its followers, and, 
so far as it goes, it would point rather to a bird of the ginger-red type than the black-red, as the 
original of most races. Again, while such writers as we have referred to have sneered at the old 
Gallus giganteus of Temminck, many credible witnesses have of late, by repeated accounts, 
left very considerable doubt whether some bird at least intermediate in size between the Gallics 
Bankiva and the gigantic races does not, after all, inhabit the jungles of Eastern Asia ; while the 
resemblance of the ordinary fighting-cock of India to a small Malay, and the singular persist- 
ency of this type of bird throughout India and the Malay peninsula, notwithstanding the utter 
absence of any attempt to breed it “ to points ” as we do, with the extraordinary hardness of its 
plumage, so closely approaching the Game, may raise further doubts on the subject, which no 
mere ipse dixit is sufficient to decide. As we have observed in the last chapter, further investiga- 
tion is required, and more knowledge of facts must be obtained, before the question of the origin 
of the domestic fowl is even ripe for settlement ; and we have only mentioned it again here, because, 
as the most typical of all breeds, the royal Game has the most interest of any in its decision. 
To the practical consideration of this breed we must now proceed. 
That much change has taken place in the general style of Game fowls owing to the decline 
of cock-fighting, and the growth instead thereof of show competition, is unquestionable ; but these 
