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HOUWINK’S EXPER. CONC, THE ORIGIN OF SOME DOMESTIC ANIMALS 361 
pe, we shall see in the Chapter on varius-hybrids. Supposing then, our 
bird to have been imported really from British India, or, what seems 
more likely from a note in an old notebook of MR. HOUWINK , bankiva’s 
sent from Indie (Sumatra?)’’, referring to his birds, from the Malay- 
Archipelago, the question arises: is it likely that a bird, resembling 
bankiva in many respects and derived from a cross with domestic 
poultry has been sold by a native as pure bankiva ? 
It results from a communication of Mrs. and Dr. HAGEDOORN, in 
their book: „The Relative Value of the Processes Causing Evolution”, 
pertaining to Gallus varius, that such is very likely. On p. 235 they 
say: 
„Charcoal-burners (in Java) often take a few (domestic) hens with 
them into the jungle; where they mate with varius-males, and pro- 
duce Bekisars. (Bekisar is the native name for the hybrid of a domestic 
hen with a Gallus varius cock). They claim that female Bekisars, which 
have no value commercially, are fertile with wild males,and a certain 
number of the apparently pure Gallus varius offered for sale on Java are 
assuredly produced by a sort of ,grading” process”, a repeated back- 
crossing to varius-males. 
Such a deliberate ‚‚falsification-process’’ as here assumed by the 
HAGEDOORNS, is likely to occur, because varius-males are in great 
demand for the artificial production of Bekisar-cocks, which are a fan- 
cy-product of the Javanese, for which high prices are paid by them. 
It is unlikely in the case of bankiva’s, as deliberate crossing with ban- 
kiva’s, as far as we have been able to ascertain is not practiced, but, as 
DARWIN !) mentions that in the Philippines bankiva-cocks are kept for 
their pugnacity by the natives to fight with their domestic game-birds, 
it is only reasonable to assume, that game-birds occasionally are cros- 
sed with bankiva’s, so that the possibility of the cock of Mr. HOUWINK, 
being a hybrid of a bankiva with Indian game must be considered, 
as the crossing may have been practised already in the East. 
There is however another way in which hybrids strongly resembling 
bankiva’s might easily have been purchased as pure bankiva’s from a not 
too honest native. 
As we have seen already (Genetica V. 1. p. 49) there appear in the 
second generation of the cross of domestic hens with varius males, 
1) Animals and Plants under domestication I p. 248. 
