. Domestic fowl and ornamental poultry;. 24 DOMESTIC FOWL. of my readers, by entering upon the useless, unsatisfactory, and often inter- minable paths of controversy. It has been very generally supposed, and most commonly asserted, that the domestic cock owes his origin to the Jungle fowl of India. I hold that he does not—that he, in fact, differs as much from that bird as one fowl can well differ from another; they will certainly breed together, but so will the hare and rabbit. Read, however, the following description of the Jungle fowl, and, if you can, point out its counterpart among our do
. Domestic fowl and ornamental poultry;. 24 DOMESTIC FOWL. of my readers, by entering upon the useless, unsatisfactory, and often inter- minable paths of controversy. It has been very generally supposed, and most commonly asserted, that the domestic cock owes his origin to the Jungle fowl of India. I hold that he does not—that he, in fact, differs as much from that bird as one fowl can well differ from another; they will certainly breed together, but so will the hare and rabbit. Read, however, the following description of the Jungle fowl, and, if you can, point out its counterpart among our domestic stock:— It is about one-third less than our common dunghill cock, being (the comb not included in the measurement) about twelve or fourteen inches in height. The comb is indented, and the wattles certainly bear some slight resem- blance to those of our common cock; but the naked parts of the head and. JAVANESE JUNGLE FOWL. throat are much more considerable. The feathers of the head and neck are longest on the lowest parts, and differ both in structure and aspect from those of other cocks, whether wild or tame. The Jungle hen is smaller than the cock, has neither comb nor wattles, and the throat is entirely covered with feathers—a very remarkable distinction from our domestic hens. The space round the eye is naked, and of a reddish color; the under parts are furnished with plumage, similar to that of the same parts of the cock: but, in addi- tion to these peculiarities, the Jungle cock possesses still another, which, however, the hen does not share with him—viz., the mid-rib, and stem of a portion of the feathers is considerably expanded, forming a white stripe along the whole feather, as far as the tip, where it expands, becomes broader, and forms a gristly plate of a rounded form, whitish, thin, and highly polished; this gristly substance is still more remarkable on the wing feathers than on. Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images t
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Keywords: ., bookauthorrichardsonhdfromoldca, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1850
