454 
T he Illustrated Bools of Poultry. 
hi^h on the leg, which gave them a different carriage and appearance altogether. They were small 
in bod) if anything, rather smaller than Sultans — and very delicate in constitution. It is 
probably to this cause their disappearance is due. 
RUMP LESS FOWLS. — A race of fowls without tails, and which breeds thus with great 
certainty, has been known for some hundreds of years. Messrs. Wingfield and Johnson’s original 
edition of the “ Poultry Book,” published in 1853, gives the following excellent summary of the 
accounts by the older naturalists : — 
This is the Gallns ecaudatus , or Tailless Fowl, of the naturalist Temminck, and the Gallina 
canda seu uropygio carens, or Fowl without a Tail or Rump, of Linnaeus. It is the Rumpless or 
Persian Cock of Latham, and the Rumpkin of others. This variety was known to Aldrovandus 
two centuries and a half ago, and he calls it the Persian fowl. PPis specimens only appear to have 
differed from those which we have seen in having a black plumage variously marked with yellow. 
Sonini and Temminck state that it is a native of the Ceylon forests, and is called by the natives 
ll allikikilh , or Cock of the Woods. This however is denied by Mr. E. L. Layard, brother of the 
explorer of Nineveh. Writing from Ceylon in 1850, he says, ‘The Rumpless fowl is not a wild 
inhabitant of this island, in spite of Temminck. It is a rather rare tame introduction from China, 
I am told. It may appear like boasting, but I can confidently say I am more acquainted with the 
Ceylon fauna than any man living, and that if the bird had existed wild I must have seen it. 
Waliikikidi is the name for the female of G alius Stauleyi, meaning literally, Walli, “jungle,” and 
kikilli , hen. The name of the Rumpkin is Choci-kukullo , literally Cochin fowls’ ( Gardeners' 
Chronicle , 1851, page 619). The Rev. J. Clayton, in the Philosophical Transactions for 1693, page 
992, says that he observed in Virginia that the hens and cocks were for the most part without tails; 
adding that he was assured that our English hens after some time lose their rumps. Buffon 
inconsiderately accepted this as truth, and even Dr. Latham seems not to have felt certain of its 
being untrue.” 
I he illustration on the next page represents a pair of Rumpless birds which were exhibited 
under the name of Wallikiki fowls (evidently a corruption of the Ceylon word mentioned above), at 
the Zoological Gardens of Paris some years ago. 
It is somewhat strange that certain localities should have become marked for the abundance of 
fowls thus singularly distinguished. Absurd as Mr. Clayton’s tale was of English fowls losing 
their appendages after a while, there is no reason whatever to doubt that he was correct in his account 
so far as regarded the mere abundance of Rumpless fowls in Virginia, and we met ourselves very 
recently with strikingly similar testimony ; for returning from the Crystal Palace Poultry Show of 
1872, in company with a West Indian gentleman who had been down to see it, he informed us that 
the greater number of the fowls in his neighbourhood had no tails. The tailless feline race of the 
Isle of Man is well known, and furnishes a strikingly analogous case in point. 
Rumpless fowls are not only destitute of tail-feathers, but it is found on plucking that the 
caudal projection, irreverently denominated by many carvers “the parson’s nose,” and from which 
the tail grows, is utterly wanting ; while on still further investigation by dissection it is discovered 
that even the spine itself is deficient in the final vertebrae. These peculiarities have become so 
strongly fixed by long descent, that a Rumpless fowl crossed with any other almost always 
produces a vast majority of Rumpless chickens. Hence, given a purely-bred Rumpless fowl, and 
it is easy to establish a Rumpless breed of any character which may be desired ; and by this means 
Rumpless Polish, Rumpless Bantams, &c., have been produced. These cross-bred birds, however, 
are far less certain to reproduce their kind. 
