HOUWINK'S EXPER, CONC. THE ORIGIN OF SOME DOMESTIC ANIMALS 277 
and this may be the explanation of its lion share in our domestic poultry. 
It is a very peculiar fact, that notwithstanding the long relations of 
the Dutch with the Malay Archipelago, andthe undoubted interest of 
them in poultry, the very beautiful hybrids with Gallus varius, which 
the Javanese raise continuously, and which, as we know, are fertile, 
have not found their way to Holland and from there to the rest of the 
world. The only plausible reason being that they cannot stand our 
climate. This becomes the more probable as we learn from the Hage- 
doorns „that a great many characters common to varius are quite 
common among the domestic poultry of the natives” in Java, 
among which the pheasant-like collar, which would certainly appeal to 
ourfanciers by its quaintness,if it is beauty alone were not sufficient, to 
attract them, while the only race, showing a distinct varius character, 
which has reached Europe, is the Sumatra-race, of which the cock has a 
rudimentary median wattle and the green colour of which may have 
been derived from the beetle green of varius. 
From this it seems not so very ridky to assume, that the crosses of 
wild species of Gallus segregate in a mendelian or related fashion 
(possibly differences in chromosome-number between them) but that 
the exigencies of the severer climates, through which the domesticated 
segregates passed on their way to Europe gradually eliminated [pos- 
sibly by elemination of certain chromosomes] those which were fur- 
thest removed from the, ab initio, strongest component e. g. from 
Gallus bankiva, so that but a few of the factors derived from Sonneratt, 
varius and possibly lafayetti, were retained and that we had to build 
up our races from this ‚slightly infected’ bankivian stock. That 
careful breeding can overcome this.weakness of the gametes con- 
taining factors derived from varius at least, and that we may so become 
able to raise a good many newraces, is proved by the fact that I obtained 
last year a beautiful little hen-feathered Sebright-cock with the median 
wattle of Gallus varius. The obtention of domestic races with the waxy- 
spots of sonnerati or with the pheasant-like collar of varius therefore 
seems to me to be quite within the range of realisable possibilities. 
The presence of south-American poultry laying blue eggs on the 
exposition at Barcelona, points to still other species, probably even to 
another genus, having taken part in the production of that poultry; one 
feels inclined to look among the Craccidae for it and wonders whether 
this may be responsible for the crest of our crested races. 
