Excerpt: ...young for us to kill are descended from Gallus bankivus, the jungle fowl of Eastern India. How they came here history records not: perhaps the gipsies brought them. They appear now in strange and diverse guise, the ponderous and feather-legged Cochin-China, the clean-limbed and wiry game, the crested Houdan, the Minorca with its monstrous comb, and the puny bantam. In Japan there is a breed that carries a tail seven or eight feet in length, which has to be "done" regularly like a lady's hair, to keep it from ...
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Excerpt: ...young for us to kill are descended from Gallus bankivus, the jungle fowl of Eastern India. How they came here history records not: perhaps the gipsies brought them. They appear now in strange and diverse guise, the ponderous and feather-legged Cochin-China, the clean-limbed and wiry game, the crested Houdan, the Minorca with its monstrous comb, and the puny bantam. In Japan there is a breed that carries a tail seven or eight feet in length, which has to be "done" regularly like a lady's hair, to keep it from dirt and damage. But however their outward aspects may differ, they are of the same blood and know it. A featherweight bantam cock will stand up to an elephantine brahma and fight him according to the rules of the ring and next minute pay compliments to his lady in language which she will be at no loss to understand. And if the artificial conditions of their life were removed, they would soon all lapse alike to the image of the stock from which they are sprung. This is well illustrated in a show case in the South Kensington Museum exhibiting a group of fowls from Pitcairn's Island. These are descended from some stock landed by the mutinous crew of H.M.S. Bounty in 1790, which ran wild, and in a century they have gone back to the small size and lithe figure and almost to the game colour of the wild birds from which they branched off before history dawned. If we turn next to the Ruminants, the clean beasts which chew the cud and divide the hoof, the puzzle becomes harder still. Deer and antelopes are often kept as pets, and become so tame that they are allowed to wander at liberty. In Egypt herds of gazelles were so kept before the days of Cheops. In India I have known a black buck which regularly attended the station cricket ground, moving among the nervous players with its nose in the air and insolence in its gait, fully aware that eighteen-inch horns with very sharp points insured respectful treatment. Mr. Sterndale trained a Neilghai to go in...
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