Although the domestic goose certainly differs somewhat from any known wild species, yet the amount of variation which it has undergone, as compared with that of most domesticated animals, is singularly small. This fact can be partially accounted for by selection not having come largely into play. Birds of all kinds which present many distinct races are valued as pets or ornaments; no one makes a pet of the goose; the name, indeed, in more languages than one, is a term of reproach. The goose is valued for its size and flavour, for the whiteness of its feathers which adds to their value, and for its prolificness and tameness. In all these points the goose differs from the wild parent-form; and these are the points which have been selected. Even in ancient times the Roman gourmands valued the liver of the white goose; and Pierre Belon[[32]] in 1555 speaks of two varieties, one of which was larger, more fecund, and of a better colour than the other; and he expressly states that good managers attended to the colour of their goslings, so that they might know which to preserve and select for breeding.

THE PEACOCK.

This is another bird which has hardly varied under domestication, except in sometimes being white or piebald. Mr. Waterhouse carefully compared, as he informs me, skins of the wild Indian and domestic bird, and they were identical in every respect, except that the plumage of the latter was perhaps rather thicker. Whether our birds are descended from those introduced into Europe in the time of Alexander, or have been subsequently imported, is doubtful. They do not breed very freely with us, and are seldom kept in large numbers,—circumstances which would greatly interfere with the gradual selection and formation of new breeds. There is one strange fact with respect to the peacock, namely, the occasional appearance in England of the “japanned” or “black-shouldered” kind. This form has lately been named on the high authority of Mr. Sclater as a distinct species, viz. Pavo nigripennis, which he believes will hereafter be found wild in some country, but not in India, where it is certainly unknown. The males of these japanned birds differ conspicuously from the common peacock in the colour of their secondary wing-feathers, scapulars, wing-coverts, and thighs, and are I think more beautiful; they are rather smaller than the common sort, and are always beaten by them in their battles, as I hear from the Hon. A. S. G. Canning. The females are much paler coloured than those of the common kind. Both sexes, as Mr. Canning informs me, are white when they leave the egg, and they differ from the young of the white variety only in having a peculiar pinkish tinge on their wings. These japanned birds, though appearing suddenly in flocks of the common kind, propagate their kind quite truly. Although they do not resemble the hybrids which have been raised between P. cristatus and muticus, nevertheless they are in some respects intermediate in character between these two species; and this fact favours, as Mr. Sclater believes, the view that they form a distinct and natural species.[[33]]

On the other hand, Sir H. Heron states[[34]] that this breed suddenly appeared within his memory in Lord Brownlow’s large stock of pied, white, and common peacocks. The same thing occurred in Sir J. Trevelyan’s flock composed entirely of the common kind, and in Mr. Thornton’s stock of common and pied peacocks. It is remarkable that in these two latter instances the black-shouldered kind, though a smaller and weaker bird, increased, “to the extinction of the previously existing breed.” I have also received through Mr. Sclater a statement from Mr. Hudson Gurney that he reared many years ago a pair of black-shouldered peacocks from the common kind; and another ornithologist, Prof. A. Newton, states that, five or six years ago, a female bird, in all respects similar to the female of the black-shouldered kind, was produced from a stock of common peacocks in his possession, which during more than twenty years had not been crossed with birds of any other strain. Mr. Jenner Weir informs me that a peacock at Blackheath whilst young was white, but as it became older gradually assumed the characters of the black-shouldered variety; both its parents were common peacocks. Lastly, Mr. Canning has given a case of a female of this same variety appearing in Ireland in a flock of the ordinary kind.[[35]] Here, then, we have seven well authenticated cases in Great Britain of japanned birds, having suddenly appeared within recent times in flocks of the common peafowl. This variety must also have formerly appeared in Europe, for Mr. Canning has seen an old picture, and another is referred to in the ‘Field,’ with this variety represented. These facts seem to me to indicate that the japanned peacock is a strongly marked variety or “sport,” which tends at all times and in many places to reappear. This view is supported by the young being at first white like the young of the white breed, which is undoubtedly a variation. If, on the other hand, we believe the japanned peacock to be a distinct species, we must suppose that in all the above cases the common breed had at some former period been crossed by it, but had lost every trace of the cross; yet that the offspring of these birds suddenly and completely reacquired through reversion the characters of P. nigripennis. I have heard of no other such case in the animal or vegetable kingdom. To perceive the full improbability of such an occurrence, we may suppose that a breed of dogs had been crossed at some former period with a wolf, but had lost every trace of the wolf-like character, yet that the breed gave birth in seven instances in the same country, within no great length of time, to a wolf perfect in every character; and we must further suppose that in two of the cases, the newly produced wolves afterwards spontaneously increased to such an extent as to lead to the extinction of the parent breed of dogs. So remarkable a bird as the P. nigripennis, when first imported, would have realised a large price; it is therefore improbable that it should have been silently introduced and its history subsequently lost. On the whole the evidence seems to me, as it did to Sir R. Heron, to be decisive in favour of the japanned or black-shouldered breed being a variation, induced by some unknown cause. On this view, the case is the most remarkable one ever recorded of the abrupt appearance of a new form, which so closely resembles a true species that it has deceived one of the most experienced of living ornithologists.

THE TURKEY.

It seems fairly well established by Mr. Gould,[[36]] that the turkey, in accordance with the history of its first introduction, is descended from a wild Mexican form, which had been domesticated by the natives before the discovery of America, and which is now generally ranked as a local race, and not as a distinct species. However this may be, the case deserves notice because in the United States wild male turkeys sometimes court the domestic hens, which are descended from the Mexican form, “and are generally received by them with great pleasure.”[[37]] Several accounts have likewise been published of young birds, reared in the United States from the eggs of the wild species, crossing and commingling with the common breed. In England, also, this same species has been kept in several parks; from two of which the Rev. W. D. Fox procured birds, and they crossed freely with the common domestic kind, and during many years afterwards, as he informs me, the turkeys in his neighbourhood clearly showed traces of their crossed parentage. We here have an instance of a domestic race being modified by a cross with a distinct wild race or species. F. Michaux[[38]] suspected in 1802 that the common domestic turkey was not descended from the United States species alone, but likewise from a southern form, and he went so far as to believe that English and French turkeys differed from having different proportions of the blood of the two parent-forms.

English turkeys are smaller than either wild form. They have not varied in any great degree; but there are some breeds which can be distinguished as Norfolks, Suffolks, Whites, and Copper-coloured (or Cambridge), all of which, if precluded from crossing with other breeds propagate their kind truly. Of these kinds, the most distinct is the small, hardy, dull-black Norfolk turkey, of which the chickens are black, occasionally with white patches about the head. The other breeds scarcely differ except in colour, and their chickens are generally mottled all over with brownish-grey.[[39]] The inferior tail-coverts vary in number, and according to a German superstition the hen lays as many eggs as the cock has feathers of this kind.[[40]] Albin in 1738, and Temminck within a much later period, describe a beautiful breed, dusky-yellowish, brown above and white beneath, with a large top-knot of soft plumose feather. The spurs of the male were rudimentary. This breed has been for a long time extinct in Europe; but a living specimen has lately been imported from the east coast of Africa, which still retains the top-knot and the same general colouring and rudimentary spurs.[[41]] Mr. Wilmot has described[[42]] a white turkey-cock having a crest formed of “feathers about four inches long, with bare quills, and a tuft of soft white down growing at the end.” Many of the young birds inherited this kind of crest, but afterwards it fell off or was pecked out by the other birds. This is an interesting case, as with care a new breed might probably have been formed; and a top-knot of this nature would have been to a certain extent analogous to that borne by the males in several allied genera, such as Euplocomus, Lophophorus, and Pavo.

Wild turkeys, believed in every instance to have been imported from the United States, have been kept in the parks of Lords Powis, Leicester, Hill, and Derby. The Rev. W. D. Fox procured birds from the two first-named parks, and he informs me that they certainly differed a little from each other in the shape of their bodies and in the barred plumage on their wings. These birds likewise differed from Lord Hill’s stock. Some of the latter kept at Oulton by Sir P. Egerton, though precluded from crossing with common turkeys, occasionally produced much paler-coloured birds, and one that was almost white, but not an albino. These half-wild turkeys, in thus differing slightly from each other, present an analogous case with the wild cattle kept in the several British parks. We must suppose that such differences have resulted from the prevention of free intercrossing between birds ranging over a wide area, and from the changed conditions to which they have been exposed in England. In India the climate has apparently wrought a still greater change in the turkey, for it is described by Mr. Blyth[[43]] as being much degenerated in size, “utterly incapable of rising on the wing,” of a black colour, and “with the long pendulous appendages over the beak enormously developed.”

THE GUINEA FOWL.

The domesticated Guinea fowl is now believed by some naturalists to be descended from the Numida ptilorhynca, which inhabits very hot, and, in parts, extremely arid districts in Eastern Africa; consequently it has been exposed in this country to extremely different conditions of life. Nevertheless it has hardly varied at all, except in the plumage being either paler or darker-coloured. It is a singular fact that this bird varies more in colour in the West Indies and on the Spanish Main, under a hot though humid climate, than in Europe.[[44]] The Guinea fowl has become thoroughly feral in Jamaica and in St. Domingo,[[45]] and has diminished in size; the legs are black, whereas the legs of the aboriginal African bird are said to be grey. This small change is worth notice on account of the often-repeated statement that all feral animals invariably revert in every character to their original type.