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The Asiatics. Brahmas, Cochins and Langshans. All Varieties. Their Origin; Peculiarities of Shape and Color; Egg Production; Their Market Qualities; Breeding, Mating and Exhibiting, With Detailed Instructions on Judging
Title
The Asiatics. Brahmas, Cochins and Langshans. All Varieties. Their Origin; Peculiarities of Shape and Color; Egg Production; Their Market Qualities; Breeding, Mating and Exhibiting, With Detailed Instructions on Judging
Date
Publisher
Reliable Poultry Journal Publishing Company
Excerpt
Mr. Darwin tells us that "sufficient materials do not exist for tracing the history of the separate breeds" of fowls, and it is equally true that sufficient material does not exist for tracing the growth (or evolution) of the domestic fowls of today as a whole, but from what materials we have and by what we can surmise we can piece together a probable history.
The domesticated fowl, according to Mr. Darwin, is said to have been introduced from the west into China about 1400 B.C., and we see in the descendants of those fowls a development in a decidedly different direction from that taken by the domesticated fowls in Europe and North Africa. Instead of the small, non-sitting, intensely nervous and active "Mediterranean," we find the large, clumsy, placid-dispositioned and extremely broody "Asiatics."
If we suppose that quantity and quality of meat were preferred to a great egg product we would expect just such a development of the meat producing qualities as those Asiatic fowls possess. Some of us can remember the great Yellow Shanghais, Gray Chittagongs and Malays of fifty or sixty years ago; so tall that, while standing on the floor beside it, they could eat corn off the top of a barrel that was standing on end; cock birds of the descendants of those varieties are said to have reached seventeen or eighteen pounds in weight.
Much ink has been shed over the introduction of what we know as the Asiatic varieties of fowls. Wright's "New Rook of Poultry," speaking of Cochins, says:
"Books of much pretension have traced the origin of this breed to some fowls imported in 1843, which afterwards became the property of Queen Victoria under the name of Cochin China fowls. As regards the fowls themselves this is a total mistake. A drawing of those birds was given in the Illustrated London News of that date (see illustration), from which and the description it is manifest that they had absolutely no points of the Cochin at all, save perhaps yellow legs and larga size. The shanks were long and bare, the heads carried back instead of forward, the tail large and carried high, the back long and sloping to the tail, the eyes black, the plumage close and hard. Of what we may call Malay blood they probably had a great deal, of Cochin blood none, or but some trace in a cross. But one thing about them there was; these fowls were not only big, but they probably really did come from Cochin China, and from them and that fact came undoubtedly the name, which will now belong, while poultry breeding lasts, to another fowl that has no right to it at all.
The domesticated fowl, according to Mr. Darwin, is said to have been introduced from the west into China about 1400 B.C., and we see in the descendants of those fowls a development in a decidedly different direction from that taken by the domesticated fowls in Europe and North Africa. Instead of the small, non-sitting, intensely nervous and active "Mediterranean," we find the large, clumsy, placid-dispositioned and extremely broody "Asiatics."
If we suppose that quantity and quality of meat were preferred to a great egg product we would expect just such a development of the meat producing qualities as those Asiatic fowls possess. Some of us can remember the great Yellow Shanghais, Gray Chittagongs and Malays of fifty or sixty years ago; so tall that, while standing on the floor beside it, they could eat corn off the top of a barrel that was standing on end; cock birds of the descendants of those varieties are said to have reached seventeen or eighteen pounds in weight.
Much ink has been shed over the introduction of what we know as the Asiatic varieties of fowls. Wright's "New Rook of Poultry," speaking of Cochins, says:
"Books of much pretension have traced the origin of this breed to some fowls imported in 1843, which afterwards became the property of Queen Victoria under the name of Cochin China fowls. As regards the fowls themselves this is a total mistake. A drawing of those birds was given in the Illustrated London News of that date (see illustration), from which and the description it is manifest that they had absolutely no points of the Cochin at all, save perhaps yellow legs and larga size. The shanks were long and bare, the heads carried back instead of forward, the tail large and carried high, the back long and sloping to the tail, the eyes black, the plumage close and hard. Of what we may call Malay blood they probably had a great deal, of Cochin blood none, or but some trace in a cross. But one thing about them there was; these fowls were not only big, but they probably really did come from Cochin China, and from them and that fact came undoubtedly the name, which will now belong, while poultry breeding lasts, to another fowl that has no right to it at all.
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