The writers of antiquity used the term fowl to include all the members
of the bird tribe and, in some cases, the young of other animals.
Feathered creatures, no matter what their habits, were not called
birds, neither were they separated into classes other than the "Fowls
of the Air," "Fowls of the Sea," "Fowls of the Earth," and similar
descriptive divisions.
In the seventeenth and the earlier part of the eighteenth century, the
word fowl was applied to any large feathered animal and the term bird
to those of less size. In early times the word bird was used in the
sense of brood and included the young of all animals. In an early act
of the Parliament of Scotland we find the expression "Wolf-birdis,"
referring to the very young wolf.
At the present time the term fowl in its wider sense is generally used
to include all the forms of farm poultry, both when living and when
prepared for food. More specifically it is applied to the domestic
cock and hen, or, as they are more familiarly called, chickens (Gallus
domesticus). The word chicken appropriately belongs to the common fowl
when under one year of age, yet it is used to indicate those of any
breed and of any age between birth and maturity. In this connection it
is of interest to note that in the English language the common fowl has
no distinctive name. The term hen, frequently used, should be applied
only to the female of this and other domestic fowls.
The progenitor of the common fowl is generally conceded to be the Red
Jungle Fowl (Gallus ferrugineus or bankiva), though there are three
other wild species, all oriental. This species is a native of India, a
part of China, the adjacent islands and the Philippines. Its habits are
diversified, for we are told it may "be found in lofty forests and in
the dense thickets, as well as in bamboo-jungles, and when cultivated
land is near its haunts, it may be seen in the fields, after the crops
are cut, in straggling parties of from ten to twenty."
This wild species closely resembles the breed of poultry fanciers
called the "Black-breasted Game," but the crow of the wild cock is not
as loud or prolonged as that of the tame one.
All the evidence that we possess seems to indicate that this wild
fowl was first domesticated in Burmah. The Chinese, as indicated by
tradition, received their poultry from Burmah as early as 1400 B. C.
Records show that about 1200 or 800 B. C., as some authorities hold,
the eating of the tame fowl was forbidden, though the use of the wild
fowl as food was permitted.
It seems evident that the fowl reached Europe, after domestication,
about the sixth century before the time of Christ. It continued
westward, for Julius Caesar found it in Britain at the time of his
conquests. Both the wild and the tame fowls are mentioned by the early
Latin and Greek writers. Homer writing about 900 B. C. does not refer
to the fowl, but it is mentioned by Aristophanes at a date near 500
B. C. It is of interest to know that the domesticated form is not
mentioned in the Old Testament.
It is said that some of the pagan tribes living at the present time on
the east coast of Africa have a marked aversion to the domestic fowl.
This may account for the absence of any representation of the fowl
on the ancient Egyptian monuments, though it was represented on the
Babylonian cylinders about the sixth or seventh century before Christ.
In this connection it should be mentioned that many other people,
notably the natives of the islands adjacent to the Australian continent
and some of the Indian tribes of South America, show a strong dislike
to this domestic bird as a food.
By selection, both natural and by man, many breeds have been produced.
Dr. Charles Darwin says: "Sufficient materials do not exist for
tracing the history of the separate breeds. About the commencement
of the Christian era, Columella mentions a five-toed fighting breed,
and provincial breeds; but we know nothing about them. He also
alludes to dwarf fowls; but these cannot have been the same with our
Bantams, which were imported from Japan into Bantam in Java. A dwarf
fowl, probably the true Bantam, is referred to in an old Japanese
Encyclopedia, as I am informed. In the Chinese Encyclopedia published
in 1596, but compiled from various sources, some of high antiquity,
seven breeds are mentioned."
The number of breeds is very indefinite. Darwin enumerates thirteen,
including many sub-breeds. The American Poultry Association recognizes
more than thirty, with several varieties of some of them. The game or
fighting breed more closely resembles the wild form of India than do
any of the others.
The Japanese, so noted for their wonderful development of dwarfed
trees, are also the originators of the smallest fowls--the Bantams.
Another interesting breed is called "Jumpers" or "Creepers." Their legs
are so short that they are compelled to move by jumping.
The wild hen lays from eight to twelve white eggs in nests, seldom
of better construction than a few dried leaves or grass scratched
together in a secluded spot. It is said that "to every hen belongs an
individual peculiarity in the form, color, and size of her egg, which
never changes during her life-time, so long as she remains in health,
and which is as well known to those who are in the habit of taking her
produce, as the hand-writing of their nearest acquaintance." We are
told that the tame hen raises a brood of physically stronger offspring
when allowed to select her own nesting place in some locality with
natural surroundings.
The wild and the tame fowl alike eat a variety of foods, both animal
and vegetable, but prefer the latter.
With reference to the habits and characteristics of this interesting
domestic bird of our farm yards and orchards no words can describe them
more aptly than those so delightfully written by Gail Hamilton, when
she says:
"A chicken is beautiful and round and full of cunning ways, but he
has no resources for an emergency. He will lose his reckoning and
be quite out at sea, though only ten steps from home. He never
knows enough to turn a corner. All his intelligence is like light,
moving only in straight lines. He is impetuous and timid, and has
not the smallest presence of mind or sagacity to discern between
friend and foe. He has no confidence in any earthly power that
does not reside in an old hen. Her cluck will be followed to the
last ditch, and to nothing else will he give heed.
I am afraid that the Interpreter was putting almost too fine
a point upon it, when he had Christiana and her children into
another room where was a hen and chickens, and bid them observe
awhile. So one of the chickens went to a trough to drink, and
every time she drank she lifted up her head and her eyes toward
heaven. 'See,' said he, 'what this little chick doth, and learn
of her to acknowledge whence your mercies come, by receiving them
with looking up.'
Doubtless the chick lifts her eyes toward heaven, but a close
acquaintance with the race would put anything but acknowledgment
in the act. A gratitude that thanks heaven for favors received,
and then runs into a hole to prevent any other person from sharing
the benefit of these favors, is a very questionable kind of
gratitude, and certainly should be confined to the bipeds that
wear feathers.
Yet if you take away selfishness from a chicken's moral make-up,
and fatuity from his intellectual, you have a very charming
creature left. For, apart from their excessive greed, chickens
seem to be affectionate. They have sweet, social ways.
They huddle together with fond, caressing chatter, and chirp soft
lullabies. Their toilet performances are full of interest. They
trim each other's bills with great thoroughness and dexterity,
much better, indeed, than they dress their own heads, for their
bungling, awkward little claws make sad work of it.
It is as much as they can do to stand on two feet, and they
naturally make several revolutions when they attempt to stand on
one. Nothing can be more ludicrous than their early efforts to
walk. They do not really walk. They sight their object, waver,
balance, decide, and then tumble forward, stopping all in a heap
as soon as the original impetus is lost--generally some way ahead
of the place to which they wished to go.
It is delightful to watch them as drowsiness films their round,
bright, black eyes, and the dear old mother croons them under her
ample wings, and they nestle in perfect harmony. How they manage
to bestow themselves with such limited accommodations, or how they
manage to breathe in a room so close, it is difficult to imagine.
They certainly deal a staggering blow to our preconceived notions
of the necessity of oxygen and ventilation, but they make it easy
to see whence the Germans derived their fashion of sleeping under
feather beds. But breathe and bestow themselves they do. The deep
mother breast and the broad mother wings take them all in.
They penetrate her feathers, and open for themselves unseen little
doors into the mysterious, brooding, beckoning darkness. But it
is long before they can arrange themselves satisfactorily. They
chirp, and stir, and snuggle, trying to find the softest and
warmest nook. Now, an uneasy head is thrust out, and now a whole
tiny body; but it soon re-enters in another quarter, and at length
the stir and chirp grows still. You see only a collection of
little legs, as if the hen were a banyan tree, and presently even
they disappear. She settles down comfortably and all are wrapped
in a slumberous silence.
And as I sit by the hour, watching their winning ways, and see
all the steps of this sleepy subsidence, I can but remember that
outburst of love and sorrow from the lips of Him who, though He
came to earth from a dwelling place of ineffable glory, called
nothing unclean because it was common, found no homely detail
too homely or too trivial to illustrate the Father's love; but
from the birds of the air, the fish of the sea, the lilies of
the field, the stones in the street, the foxes in their holes,
the patch on the coat, the oxen in the furrow, the sheep in the
pit, the camel under his burden, drew lessons of divine pity and
patience, of heavenly duty and delight."