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HOUWINK’S EXPER. CONC. THE ORIGIN OF SOME DOMESTIC ANIMALS 87 
in Persian religion and mythology have been reached at a very early da- 
te, certainly considerably before 600 B. C. À 
The first mention of the cock in Grecian literature is by De a- 
bout 525 B. C., but his image occurs on coins from the temple of, Arte- 
mis at Ephesus of at least 700 B. C. To the Greeks the fighting abilities 
of the cock appealed strongest, to them he was primarilya game-çock, 
and cock-fights were the commonest representations on coins. Greek 
mythology makes no mention of the cock, neither is it referred to 1n,e1- 
ther Hesiod or Homer. 
The establishment of the cock in Greece was only a slight se 
compared with the steady progress along the line of the Iranian.inva- 
sion, which carried the bird through Bactria and Persia on into Scythia 
and Europe, stretching across finally to the British Isles and spreading 
down from Gaul into Central Italy. Long before Greek colonists carried 
the bird to south Italy, it had passed on to the Northward, and, was 
being carried southward through Italy on the line of an independant 
advance. The first European distribution of the cock was overlandra- 
ther than by sea, or by coastal colonists. The Romans found it well es- 
tablished in Gaul, England and among the Germans. The Greeks knew it 
as a Persian bird, the Romanscalled it gallusafter their return from Gaul. 
Caesar tells of the religious significance of the cock among the Gauls. 
The Greeks carried the cock southward to the Phoenician cities, but 
only at a late date did it become well established on the Syrian main- 
land. As early as 700 B. C. the Assyrians and Babylonians received the 
fowl from the Medes and Persians, where it had been known since 1000. 
We do not know where the Aramaeans — inhabiting the lands stret- 
ching from the western frontiers of Babylonia to the highlands of Wes- 
tern Asia — got it but from them the Jews in Palestine received jt a- 
bout 200 B. C. The cock is consequently not mentioned in the Old, Les- 
tament, while both the New Testament and the Talmud refer to itz ;The- 
re is no image of the cock on Egyptian monuments before the Roman 
period, no cock or hen is known to have reached Egypt before SOB,C. 
It is very strange indeed that no hint of chickens or fowl should have 
been brought by the Persians or the Grecian mercenaries of Psamme- 
tichus to Egypt. bris 
All this evidence clearly points to India as the origin of our domestic 
poultry, but, of course leaves the question whether it descended: from 
one or more of the Indian native species entirely open. it 
