aps the gipsies brought them. They appear now in
strange and diverse guise, the ponderous and feather-legged
Cochin-China, the clean-limbed and wiry game, the crested Houdan, the
Minorca with its monstrous comb, and the puny bantam. In Japan there is
a breed that carries a tail seven or eight feet in length, which has to
be "done" regularly like a lady's hair, to keep it from dirt and damage.

But however their outward aspects may differ, they are of the same
blood and know it. A featherweight bantam cock will stand up to an
elephantine brahma and fight him according to the rules of the ring and
next minute pay compliments to his lady in language which she will be at
no loss to understand. And if the artificial conditions of their life
were removed, they would soon all lapse alike to the image of the stock
from which they are sprung. This is well illustrated in a show case in
the South Kensington Museum exhibiting a group of fowls from Pitcairn's
Island. These are descended from some stock landed by the mutinous crew
of H.M.S. _Bounty_ in 1790, which ran wild, and in a century they have
gone back to the small size and lithe figure and almost to the game
colour of the wild birds from which they branched off before history
dawned.

If we turn next to the Ruminants, the clean beasts which chew the cud
and divide the hoof, the puzzle becomes harder still. Deer and antelopes
are often kept as pets, and become so tame that they are allowed to
wander at liberty. In Egypt herds of gazelles were so kept before the
days of Cheops. In India I have known a black buck which regularly
attended the station cricket ground, moving among the nervous players
with its nose in the air and insolence in its gait, fully aware that
eighteen-inch horns with very sharp points insured respectful treatment.
Mr. Sterndale trained a Neilghai to go in harness. The great bovine
antelopes of Africa would become as tame, and there is no reason to
suppose that their beef and milk would not be as good as those of the
cow. But no antelope or deer appears ever to have been domesticated,
with the exception of the reindeer.

Of the other ruminants the ox, buffalo, yak, goat, sheep and a few
others are domestic animals, while the bison and the gaur, or so-called
Indian bison, and a large number of wild goats and sheep have been
neglected. The buffalo and yak have probably come under the yoke in
comparatively recent times, for they are little changed; but the