. They know well that the several kinds breed
truly even in colour. They assert, but, as we shall see, on very weak
grounds, that most of the breeds are extremely ancient. They are strongly
impressed with the great difference between the chief kinds, and they ask
with force, can differences in climate, food, or treatment have produced
birds so different as the black stately Spanish, the diminutive elegant
Bantam, the heavy Cochin with its many peculiarities, and the Polish fowl
with its great top-knot and protuberant skull? But fanciers, whilst
admitting and even overrating the effects of crossing the various breeds,
do not sufficiently regard the probability of the occasional birth, during
the course of centuries, of birds with abnormal and hereditary
peculiarities; they overlook the effects of correlation of growth--of the
long-continued use and disuse of parts, and of some direct result from
changed food and climate, though on this latter head I have found no
sufficient evidence; and lastly, they all, as far as I know, entirely
overlook the all-important subject of unconscious or unmethodical
selection, though they are well aware that their birds differ individually,
and that by selecting the best birds for a few generations they can improve
their stocks.

An amateur writes[368] as follows. "The fact that poultry have until lately
received but little attention at the hands of the fancier, and been
entirely confined to the domains of the producer for the market, would
alone suggest the improbability of that constant and unremitting attention
having been observed in breeding, which is requisite to the consummating,
in the offspring of any two birds, transmittable forms not exhibited by the
parents." This at first sight appears true. But in a future chapter on
Selection, abundant facts will be given showing not only that careful
breeding, but that actual selection was practised during ancient periods,
and by barely civilised races of man. In the case of the fowl I can adduce
no direct facts showing that selection was anciently practised; but the
Romans at the commencement of the Christian era kept six or seven breeds,
and Columella "particularly recommends as the best, those sorts {232} that
have five toes and white ears."[369] In the fifteenth century several
breeds were known and described in Europe; and in China, at nearly the same
period, seven kinds were named. A more striking case is that at present, in
one of the