cook, whenever it was wanted; and their experience soon informed them, that hen-eggs were strong, and hen-flesh sweet and nourishing food.

Even if the Jews of those days could not be reconciled to the eggs and flesh of domestic poultry, as a part of diet ; they might be induced to keep them for sale to the Roman soldiers and publicans, who resided in Judea or resorted to Jerusalem. Whatever scruples they themselves might have to eating their eggs or flesh, to which their conquerors and lords were much addicted, they could have none to the sale of them to strangers, who might desire to purchase.

All their descendants, at least, have been guided by the love of gain, as the principal spur to their actions. The whole world is agreed, that no class of men ever knew better the art of making money, or were more successful in making it.

That the Jews of those days were accustomed at least to act as petty traders, we have positive proof. Though swine were held in the utmost abomination by the Jews, yet we learn from the gospel history, that these were common in Judea ; and we cannot suppose that they were kept for any other purpose, than for sale to the Gentiles, who

fond of swine's flesh. From the grounds now stated, then, it may be concluded, that the Jews of our Lord's day were not prevented by the Mosaic law, from using as food the eggs and flesh of hens; or, if the tradition of the elders led them to view the matter in that light, they might breed them for sale to foreigners, just as they bred swine, from the profit which might be derived from their sale.

In the neighbourhood of the palace of the high priest, therefore, either in the houses of Jews or Gentiles, poultry might be kept, either for use or sale, and, as is customary with cocks, they would crow betwixt midnight and morning; and, as their instincts prompt them to crow several

were very

times, these might be named the first second, and third crowings.

Even if we suppose that cocks were not allowed to come within the walls of the city, the house of Caiaphas the high priest was very near the walls; and if there was a cock belonging to any person without the walls, and there might be many persons who had cocks, the crowings of one or other of these might be distinctly heard in the house of Caiaphas.

It is a curious circumstance, that mankind have rather been late in taming and keeping domestic fowls. They are supposed to have come at first from the banks of the Phasis; or, at least, from countries south and east of the Euxine Sea; and their value increased, as men came to know the sweetness and excellence of their flesh, and the prodi. gious number of eggs, which they laid, above what is necessary to continue the race.

I cannot conclude these remarks, without expressing my unqualified abhorrence of cock-fighting. The practice, followed by some Britons, of pitting cocks against one another, till they are all killed but one, whatever be their number, is savage in the extreme; and that of the Suma,

. trans, who stake their wives and children, their brothers and sisters, on the result of the battle between their own cocks and those of their antagonists, is barbarity and insanity united.

At the first school that ever I attended, as many boys as pleased were desired to bring cocks on Candlemas day, and as few brought them, the deficiency was made up by the colliers of the village ; but, if we wanted cocks, our attendance was indispensable, and there were we condemned, for six or seven hours, to witness these spirited creatures beating and destroying one another,—an excellent lesson, no doubt, to be taught young children, of consideration and mercy towards the inferior animals !

XIX.-On the Origin of Domestic Poultry.

By JAMES WILSON, Esq. F. R. S. E. &c.

(Read 20th March 1830.)

THE characters usually assigned by systematic naturalists to the genus of which the birds now under consideration form a part, are as follows:

BILL of moderate length, but strong; bare at the base. Upper mandible arched, rounded, convex, bent at the tip. HEAD surmounted by a fleshy crest, which is sometimes only rudimentary, or replaced by a plume of feathers. CHIN wattled. CHEEKS bare. TOES four in number: the three anterior united at their bases by a membrane as far as the first joint; the back toe elevated. LEGS furnished with spurs. TAIL composed of two inclined or nearly vertical planes, surmounted by more elongated central plumes, which are curved in the form of an arch.

The genus above defined has been bisected by M. Temminck. The second section, containing the beautiful Maccartney Cock (Gallus Macartnii, Temm.), is distinguished by having only the sides of the head bare, the crest composed of feathers, and the tarsi more elongated than in the other species. The first section, besides the bare cheeks,

has also a portion of the anterior part of the neck bare of feathers.

In addition to the more precise characters above mentioned, it has been observed that a certain family resemblance, which cannot be easily expressed in words, not only unites these birds among themselves, but serves to distinguish them from the nearly allied family of the pheasants. The two genera which contain the cocks and pheasants are, however, so closely allied, as to render it in some instances a matter of no little difficulty to draw between them a decided line of demarcation. By the great Linnæus they were indeed included under a single genus, that of Phasianus, although much earlier authors, such as Gesner, Aldrovandus, Frisch, had shewn the propriety of forming that division called Gallus, since re-established as a separate genus by Brisson, Illiger, and others of recent date.

The aspect of the genuine Galli, if not fierce, is at least very bold and commanding. They carry their heads high, their necks upright, their bodies raised. Their tails are compressed and vertical, their cheeks bare, their throats wattled, and their heads usually surmounted by a fleshy crest or comb. Pheasants, on the other hand, besides being of feebler constitution, and consequently more difficult to rear, possess a more elongated form of body, which is usually maintained in a horizontal position ; their tails are long and slender, and project nearly on the same level with the dorsal line, and their cheeks are covered by a tissue of very short feathers, of the consistence of velvet.

Of the many benefits which Providence has enabled man to draw from within the great circle of the feathered race, there is none which surpasses in extent and utility the domestication of those most familiarly known of all birds, called, par excellence, the Cock and Hen. So ancient has been the subservience of this species to the human race, that no authentic traditionary traces now remain of its original introduction to any of the more ancient kingdoms of the earth, and its existence under the protection of man, seems indeed coeval with the most antique records. It is one of those especial gifts, which, like the faithful and accommodating dog, may be said at an early period of the world to have joined its fortunes with those of the first families of the human race, to have followed man in his wonderful and far-spread migrations, and, adapting its constitution with facility to the varied circumstances of clime and country which these migrations produced, to have finally lost, in consequence of such plastic nature, almost all resemblance to the source from which it

sprung

For some thousand years the observers of nature were ignorant of any wild species, which even in a remote degree resembled any variety of the domestic breed, and from the era of Herodotus to that of Sonnerat, the domestic cock and hen might have been regarded as birds, the living analogues of which were no longer known to exist in a natural and unsubdued condition.

In consequence of the remote obscurity in which the subject is thus involved, few points in natural history have occasioned more inconclusive speculation, or are even now more difficult to determine with precision than the source from which we originally derived the different races of our domestic poultry. That they came originally from Persia, has been inferred from this among other circumstances, that Aristophanes calls the cock “the Persian Bird.” Such an origin is improbable, when we consider that the researches of modern travellers, and of ail who have visited that country since the revival of learning, have failed to discover there any species of wild poultry; and although its ornithology is not yet known in detail, especially as regards the smaller species, that so conspicuous a feature in its na