POULTRY AND THEIR DISEASES.
The domestic fowl. The cock tribe is used as a generic term, to include the whole family of domestic fowls; the name of the male, in this instance, furnishing an appellation sufficiently comprehensive and well recognized.
The domestic cock appears to have been known to man from a very early period. Of his real origin there is little definitely known; and even the time and manner of his introduction into Greece, or Southern Europe, are enveloped in obscurity. In the palmiest days of Greece and Rome, however, he occupied a conspicuous place in those public shows which amused the masses of the people. He was dedicated to the service of the pagan deities, and was connected with the worship of Apollo, Mercury, Mars, and particularly Esculapius. The flesh of this bird was highly esteemed as a delicacy, and occupied a prominent place at the Roman banquets. Great pains were taken in the rearing and fattening of poultry for this purpose.
The practice of cock-fighting, barbarous as it is, originated in classic times, and among the most polished and civilized people of antiquity. To its introduction into Britain by the Cæsars we owe our acquaintance with the domestic fowl.
It is impossible to state positively to what species of the wild cock, known at present, we are to look for the primitive type, so remote is the date of the original domestication of the fowl. Many writers have endeavored to show that all the varieties of the domestic fowl, of which we now have knowledge, are derived from a single primitive stock. It has, also, been confidently asserted that the domestic cock owes his origin to the jungle fowl of India. The most probable supposition, however, is, that the varieties known to us may be referred to a few of the more remarkable fowls, as the progenitors of the several species. The great fowl of St. Jago and Sumatra may, perhaps, safely be recognized as the type of some of the larger varieties, such as the Spanish and the Padua fowls, and those resembling them; while to the Bankiva cock, probably, the smaller varieties belong, such as Bantams, the Turkish fowl, and the like.
The reasons assigned for supposing these kinds to be the true originals of our domestic poultry, are, first, the close resemblance subsisting between their females and our domestic hens; second, the size of our domestic cock being intermediate between the two, and alternating in degree, sometimes inclining toward the one, and sometimes toward the other; third, from the nature of their feathers and their general aspect—the form and distribution of their tails being the same as our domestic fowls; and, fourth, in these two birds alone are the females provided with a crest and small wattles, characteristics not to be met with in any other wild species.