Variation in Fowls

Abstract

THE recurrence of the large shows of the different varieties of domestic poultry which occurs at this season of the year gives an admirable opportunity to those interested in the subject of studying the characters of the different breeds, and the almost innumerable varieties produced by crossing them. The study of variation has been a favourite pursuit of mine for more than half a century. When Darwin was preparing his works on the “Origin of Species” and on the “Variation of Animals,” he was surprised to find, when I Was introduced to him by Yarrell at a poultry show, that I had made a large collection of crania of the different varieties. Of these specimens he availed himself largely in his work on “Variation,” in which I had the great pleasure of assisting him. I can, therefore, speak with considerable precision of the great change which has taken place in the breeds of poultry during the last fifty years. The figures in Darwin's large work on the “Variation of Animals” were all drawn from birds selected by myself as the most typical specimens of the various races, but I may state that there is not a single figure shown that would not now be repudiated as utterly unworthy of exhibition by the present fanciers, every variety having had its fancy points so greatly increased. To take the figure of the Spanish fowl (shown in chapter vii.), characterised by its white face and large white ear lobe. This represents a fowl which now hardly exists, for the comb has been increased to at least four times the area of that shown by Darwin; the white skin on the face has been so much enlarged as to cause the birds when aged to become blind unless the skin is cut away. The ear lobe, enlarged in the portrait to many times its natural size, has been again increased, becoming in some cases more than seven inches in length by four or five in breadth when spread out, and offering an area of some thirty square inches. These characters have been carried to such an excess that the breed has become altered from an abundant layer of large eggs into a practically useless variety, and at many shows where they were formerly the most numerous birds exhibited heyare now absent, having been, as it were, improved by the fanciers almost out of existence, their laying qualities and utility having almost entirely disappeared. At the Crystal Palace show recently held where nearly 4000 fowls were exhibited, less than a dozen Spanish put in an appearance, and at the show just open at the Alexandra Palace, where there are no less than, 281 classes for the different varieties of fowls, Spanish are conspicuous by their absence.