HOUWINK’S EXPER. CONC. THE ORIGIN OF SOME DOMESTIC ANIMALS 41 
. The number of eggs is unusually large for Gallus, six or twelve with 
the mode of average about 8. BEEBE knows of no greater number of 
young seen with their parents than 4, and several times he observed 
only two. Apparently monogamy is a more common habit than poly- 
gamy. 
The eggs are very rare in collections, and the published descriptions 
and measurements show such discrepancy that it is probable that the 
eggs of bankiva or hybrids have sometimes been confused with those of 
varius. Four eggs, in BEEBE’S collection, taken near Patjiran, are buf- 
fy-white with a faint tint of yellowish, of a rounded oval shape, the 
shell being glossy, with very inconspicuous punctures. They measure 
43 X 34; 44 x 34;45 x 35; and 46 x 35 mm., averaging 44.5 x 34.5. 
There is no account of their breeding voluntarily with domestic fowl, 
but they are very frequently forced to do so, in order to obtain the 
highly priced hybrids or bekisars, which formerly were considered asa 
separate species and described as Gallus aeneus. Of the method em- 
ployed VORDERMAN gives the following description in his „Bijdrage tot 
de kennis der vogels van de Kangean-archipel Natk. Tijdschr. Ned.- 
Indie LII p. 204. We translate from the Dutch: 
Kangean is an island of the Kangean-Archipelago, a group of islands 
forming the remnants of the farthest South-East point of the former 
Malay-Asiatic continent. By submarine ledges these islands are united 
with one another and, via Raäsand Sapoedi, with Madoura. Towards the 
East and South they are separated from the rest of the archipelago by 
a sea, which between Kangean and the small Sounda-islands reaches a 
depth from 300 to 700 fathoms, while the street of Makassar, separa- 
ting them from Celebes, is, partly at least, not less deep. The islands of 
the Kangean-Archipelago consist, as do also the islands Raäs, Sapoedi 
and Gili Eang, of the same hilly chalk-and sandstoneformation which 
is characteristic of Madoura; some of them however are coral-islands. 
The chief island is Kangean, where Gallus variusis common and ex- 
tensively used to obtain bekisars. Hardly any house is without a pair of 
G. varius, kept in cages under the overhanging part of the roof, the 
cock separated from the hen. The Kangean bird is brighter colored 
than the Javanese one and more easily tamed. In the garden of the bun- 
galow of the „Controleur” at Kali Sangka, VORDERMAN saw the way in 
which hybrids are obtained. The cock and hen of Gallus varius are each 
kept in a bamboo cage of beehive shape the bottom of which can be re- 
