A PRELIMINARY STATEMENT OF THE RESULTS OF Mr. 
HOUWINK’S EXPERIMENTS CONCERNING THE ORIGIN OF 
SOME DOMESTIC ANIMALS 
by J. P. Lotsy and K. KUIPER 
Part V (conclusion) 
with Plates II— VIII 
(continued from Genetica V 1923 p. 373 
CHAPTER VI 
Hybridisation-experiments 
1. DOMESTIC FOWL X GALLUS LAFAYETTI 
As Mr. HOUWINK did not succeed in getting living Gallus Lafayetti, 
we have to rely, as far as crosses with that species are concerned, on the 
experiments of the Ceylon Poultry Club, as reported by Dr. J. LLEWEL- 
LYN THOMAS. 
Darwin refuted any claim of G. lafayetti to the ancestry of domestic 
poultry, because: 
1) The unique comb of lafayetti, a fairly large one with an orange 
center, is not found in any domestic race. 
2) its voice is different from any ordinary cock-crow. 
3) Mr. MITFORD reported that its hybrids with domestic poultry 
are sterile. 
Discussing these points, the late Lewis WRIGHT — recognised as an 
authority on poultry-matters — wrote in the 1893 edition of his stan- 
dardwork „the Book of Poultry” p. 504: . 
„Ihe fact that hybrids between G. lafayeltı and common fowl are so 
common in Ceylon as scarcely to excite remark, should make us cautious 
in concluding, on the sole evidence of two individuals mentioned by 
MR. MITFORD, that such hybrids are sterile; and on this point many of 
our observations on G. Sonnerati, as to the difficulty of breeding from 
