11 
CHAPTER II. 
ORIGIN. 
st P to recent years the Indian game were in England con- 
4h) fined to Cornwall and Devon, revelling in the hills and 
Re 2 dales of those two fair counties, which veritably are ideal 
nareeh for poultry, and I believe I am not alone in saying it is impos- 
sible for one living in the Midlands and north of England to get that 
sheen and tightness of feather on their birds, in obtaining which the 
climate there materially assists. One can only conjecture as to the 
origin of the Indian game—but without doubt the Aseel, the oldest 
and purest race of domestic fowl used by the native rajahs and 
princes of Northern India for fighting purposes, which has been 
carried on there from earliest ages, said to have been introduced 
into England under the name of Indian game, as being from 
India—appear to have been the parents of the present Indian 
Game, possibly crossed with the Malay, and which was then 
improved by English breeders ; and for some years the two breeds 
seem to haye run in conflict under the same title of Indian game, 
when the original breed, by fresh importations, took the name of 
Aseel, by which they were known in India. 
The following testimony on this subject by Mr. Montressor, 
copied from ‘‘ Poultry,” is valuable : 
««¢ Aseel’—this is the name by which the breed is known and 
styled in India, and has been adopted in England for some years 
in order to distinguish it from that which is designated ‘ Indian 
Game’ (a breed not known to the natives of India), and originated 
in England by the late Sir Walter Raleigh Gilbert upwards of sixty 
years since, when he imported from India some red ‘ Aseel’ into 
Cornwall, and there crossed them with the Derby black reds. Sir 
Walter (then General) Gilbert personally gave me this information 
in 1846.” 
The present breed has been known for at least thirty years by 
the name of Cornish game, and Mr. Lewis Wright in his well-known 
