502 
The Illustrated Book of Poultry. 
wild state, we may confidently look at it as the parent of at least the Game breeds.” Then 
replying to the hypothesis that some other wild species may have been the parent of other breeds, 
and still exist undiscovered or have become extinct, he considers extinction at least “an improbable 
hypothesis, seeing that the four known species have not become extinct in the most ancient and 
thickly-peopled regions of the East.” He ends with the general argument that “ the four known 
species of Galhis , when crossed with each other, or when crossed (with the exception of Gallus 
Bankiva) with the Domestic Fowl, produce infertile hybrids but finally admits that “we have not 
such good evidence with fowls as with pigeons of all the breeds having descended from a single 
primitive stock. This last sentence speaks the truly scientific man, and stands in amusing con- 
trast with the ignorant dogmatism of some who, without a tithe of Mr. Darwin’s knowledge, have 
written as if the whole matter could be settled by their bare affirmation, and even gone out of their 
way to speak in terms of deliberate insult of such as had the misfortune to be unable to agree 
with them. With such we have nothing to do — they are beyond conviction ; but for those who 
honestly seek further facts upon which to reason, we will proceed to state such as have come under 
our own notice, and seem to us to furnish strong reasons against some of Mr. Darwin’s conclusions. 
We say some of them, because they by no means tend to prove that there was not one primitive 
stock ; though they do, in our opinion, make it exceedingly doubtful whether that stock was 
the Gallus Bankiva. 
In the first place, then, the supposed sterility of Sonnerat hybrids seems to us to rest on very 
insufficient data, and is indeed altogether disproved by the experience of Mr. Douglas above 
quoted. Mr. Blyth himself is stated to have raised nearly ioo hybrids at Calcutta — a most 
amazing number if the races are alien, as all who have tried to produce pheasant hybrids are well 
aware. Those which were reared, it is true, are stated to have been “ absolutely sterile,” whether 
bred biter se or with either parent, and to have been very tender, mostly dying young. But this 
weakness of constitution we have seen to be shared by the pure Sonnerat in the experience of both 
Mr. Parr and Mr. Nevile; while, on the other hand, Mr. Douglas found them both hardy, and the 
hybrids prolific. These contradictions appear at first sight inexplicable, but vanish on con- 
sideration. Mr. Parr and Mr. Nevile kept them in confinement, one gentleman even giving them 
warmed houses ; while the other was a skilled poultry -fancier and breeder , thoroughly acquainted 
with the rearing both of game and poultry, and who kept and reared his as nearly as possible in 
their free, wild condition. We have already seen the effect of such treatment in the case of delicate 
domestic breeds (see Mr. Teebay’s notes on Spanish), and we get a most significant confirmation of 
our supposition as to the cause of such surprising differences of experience, in Mr. Parr’s own old 
cock, which, ailing as he was, revived directly he was turned out in the woods , although the snow was 
on the ground. Stronger corroboration there could in fact hardly be ; but since his notes above 
were written, we have asked Mr. Douglas specially as to the prolificacy of the hybrids, and he 
replies as follows : — “ The hybrids, or cross-breds, with me were very prolific — hardly ever a bad 
egg. They crossed all ways, as I had them for years and crossed them anyhow — or rather they 
crossed themselves — and how they bred I scarcely know ; but I do know there were but few eggs 
failed to have chicks in them.” Again, it is admitted that three chickens were actually reared at 
the Gardens from hybrids crossed inter se; and small as this number is, breeding inter se at all is a 
fact so strong, as is in nearly all other cases held sufficient to constitute unity of species ; while we 
have shown the strongest reasons for believing that the want of greater fertility, and the barrenness 
in other cases, may have been owing to too artificial treatment. The men to make such experi- 
ments are men like Mr. Douglas, who have made the ways and habits of fowls the special study 
of their lives, and who think nothing of disappointments which would throw others possessing only 
