HOUWINK’S EXPER. CONC. THE ORIGIN OF SOME DOMESTIC ANIMALS 29 
sity actually observed among wild birds to crossing with domestic 
poultry! Of this the says L. c. p. 179: 
„The crow of the Red Jungle fowl, like the details of plumage and co- 
lour of wattles, shows quite marked variation, which is rather individu- 
al than characteristic of the birds of any one district. This undoubtedly 
is due to the infusion of a domestic strain ia many apparently purely 
feral birds.” 
The only conspicuously deviating form mentioned by BEEBE is an 
entirely black female Junglefowl with a greenish metallic reflection 
from Negros, described by CLARK in Ibis 1900 p. 360, which apparently 
is a genuine melanotic wild Junglefowl. 
It may seem to the reader that we give too much space to the des- 
cription of the wild species of Gallus, this is however absolutely neces- 
sary, to allow him to judge of the nature of the birds used in our 
experiments, which will be described later on. Wild bankiva's are 
mostly monogamous. 
2. THE CEYLON JUNGLE FOWL 
(Plate I fig. 2) 
In the case of Gallus lafay.tti it suffises to give brief descriptions, as 
only skins of this species were obtained so that it does not enter in 
Mr. HOUWwINK'’s experiments. Synonym: G. Stanleyi Gray, the name 
given to the hen before it was known that she belonged to G. lafayetti. 
BEEBE l. c. p. 213 gives the following brief description : 
Male: Hackles of neck and mantle and all but the largest wing-co- 
verts pale straw to deep golden yellow, with a black or chestnut central 
stripe ;backandrump orange-red, with much of the visible portion glos- 
sy violet; secondaries purplish, and tail-coverts and tail greenishblue ; 
greater coverts partly blue, partly chestnut; a violet patch on the lo- 
wer neck; remainder of under parts bright orange red, with the chest- 
nut stripe becoming dominant on the belly, and black on the lower bel- 
ly and flanks; comb red, with a central yellow patch; face, throat and 
wattles red; iris yellow, legs and feet pink or yellow. 
Female: Crown brown, nape rufous; mantle, back and wingcoverts 
brown or greyish, vermiculated with black, secondaries with irregular 
bars of black, buffy-white and chestnut; tail chestnut, mottled with 
black; upper breast mottled black and brown, with white shaft-stripes, 
