The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-01-15
MEN, WOMEN
 AND THINGS

Unless you have taken the trouble to look into it you will be astonished to know the literature which has grown around the poultry business. am not speaking of the scores of poul- try journals. or the department in the farm papers or the catalogues sent out by the ton but about the bulletins of the agricultural colleges. the depart ment at Washington and the books galore
 Now. there was time when l read much about chickens. for l had the bug" mighty bad. ard am glad that did. for l got fine recreation ou4 of raising one of the best of the pure breeds and being among the number who read and are classed as book farmers,9 I wanted to know the liter ature of the subject. so I took the spe- eial publications and bought various books and in this way got great amount of really interesting and valu- able information about their past and Iresent history
 Fowls are the oldest of our do- nestical animals. so far as history re- cords. The earliest mention is found in Chinese encyclopedia compiled from ancient documents. where it says,
 Fowls are. creatures of the west"
 This is not in conflict with the state ment that the origin of the domesti- cated breeds is ascribed by Darwin, Blyth and other naturalists to the
 Bankiva fowl. The Chinese, when fowls were introduced into China in a dynasty HOO B. C.. considered the
 Indian river as their source.
 It seems, however. to be the opinion
 now that Darwin was mistaken in be- lieving all domestic fowls to have
 sprung from single species, the jungle cock CGallus bankiva), which is still found in the jungles of India in wild state His belief was founded
 upon the fact that it closely resem-
 bled the black breasted red game of today one of the oldest fowls known; further grounds being that it crosses readily with common hens. resembling
 domestic fowls in voice and action and being readily domesticated.
 Darwin. came to his conclusion be- cause the Bankiva cock produced fer
 tile offspring both when bred on
 other species and on domestic hens and that sterile offspring resulted
 when other wild species were crossed
 with domestic fowl. It is now thought
 that this want of fertility was due in
 great part to the unnatural conditions
 under which parent and offspring
 were placed and if bred under more
 natural conditions there would be no
 difficulty in rearing these hybrids or in breeding them with the domesti- cated varieties.
 In support of this contention, it is
 cited that several domestic varieties
 bear a much closer resemblance to
 other wild species than they do the
 Bankivas. I think from studying the
 Nei iOuo litdl IL IS Sdlc tO say that two wild species are involved
 in the ancestry of the domestic fowl, or chicken. as this class of scratching
 birds is popularly called. One is the jungle fowl of India. China and the
 East Indies. and still common in those
 was the Malay or Aseel fowl the lat ter being thought by many to be the first fowl domesticated.
 I could go more into details, but l
 have given sufficient to indicate that, like many other things. the true his tory of chickens is -till a matter of debate. I will add that the Aseel was of stockv body and broad and not given to flight. On the other hand, the jungle fowl is active slender and flies with ease and pleasure. The early rearing of these two types gives us tip about our present-day birds. The heavier birds were reared in ori- ental lands and the lighter Variety along the Mediterranean coast.
 II the Chinese, as suSudl, scored. 1lrSl in mentioning fowls. they also came into notice early in other lands, as Aristophanes. between 400 and 800 B C., called attention to them. They also figured on Bahylonian calendars be- tween the Sixth and Seventh centuries E. c. Mention of them can also be found in Greek and Roman authors Theogns Aristotle. Diodorus, Aeschy- Jus. Plutarch Platos and Pliny. and they are supposed to have been taken into Sthe British Isles by the Romans who regarded them as sacred to Mars To show the age of some of the breeds. take that of the Dorking, the variety most strongly entrenched in the yards of the British poulterers. for the Dorking is historIcally nearly 200( years old. Ii was described by CO lumella as being common in Rome 1T his day and apparently the Romans took it to Britain, where. on accoun. of Druidical prohibition. fowls had no, been bred for eating. It seems strange that a stock of poultry now on the
 market antedates the birth of Christ I know of no more interesting study brought about by mans handling of chickens than ;s wrapped up in the story of the gradual improvement e