HOUWINK’S EXPER, CONC. THE ORIGIN OF SOME DOMESTIC ANIMALS 27 
„In gait and carriage there is much difference between individual 
Junglefowl, the same influence being at work here as in the case of the 
voice (to wit hybridity see l.c.p. 179). The birds which haunt the vici- 
nity of villages have usually much more of what we are pleased to calla 
proud carriage than the real jungle individuals. The tail is held higher 
and the movements are slower and more dignified, as we interpret 
them. But once the real fowl of the deep jungle is seen it will not be 
forgotten.” 
„I have seen many so-called Junglefowl in captivity and they satis- 
fied all the requirements of the casual observer, who would remark 
‚that such splendid carriage was well worthy of the ancestor of our com- 
mon fowls, and similar sentiments. But the pair of birds which arrived 
at the London Zoo in 1912 were almost the first real feral Junglefowl I 
have ever seen in captivity. Dignity was absent; the carriage was that 
of an untamable leopard; low-hungtail, slightly bent legs; heads low, 
always intent, listening, watching; almost never motionless, but win- 
ding in and out of the shrubbery, striving to put every leaf possible be- 
tween themselves and the observer, To my mind, they fulfilled every 
ancestral requirement much more satisfactorily than the usual Jungle- 
fowltype. It would take more than one generation to tame them.” 
It seems to me that there is much sentiment in this statement ; cer- 
tainly BEEBE is in contradiction with himself; on the same page he 
states, that coming suddenly in sight of several wild Jungle fowl, which 
after having sighted him „drew up to their full height and hurriedly 
enough, but with raised tails 1) took to the jungle and on p. 188 we 
read: 
„And here, I should notice that although, as has often been noticed, 
the wild cocks always droop their tails when running away or feeding, 
— in fact almost always whenever you see them — yet, I believe, from 
what I then and once subsequently saw, that, when challenging rivals, 
they probably always erect the tail, and I know (having twice so surpri- 
sed them, before they saw me) that when paying their addresses to 
their mates they do the same during the preliminary strutsround them. ”’ 
From these statements it seems to us that the hanging tailis preemi- _ 
nently a sign of fear and that the conclusion that bankiva’s kept in cap- 
tivity raise their tail more generally than wild, frightened birds, is no 
reason to suspect their purity, but simply a sign of having gained con- 

1) italics are ours. 
