ng the history of the separate
breeds. About the commencement of the Christian era, {247} Columella
mentions a five-toed fighting breed, and some provincial breeds; but we
know nothing more about them. He also alludes to dwarf fowls; but these
cannot have been the same with our Bantams, which, as Mr. Crawfurd has
shown, were imported from Japan into Bantam in Java. A dwarf fowl, probably
the true Bantam, is referred to in an old Japanese Encyclopaedia, as I am
informed by Mr. Birch. In the Chinese Encyclopaedia published in 1596, but
compiled from various sources, some of high antiquity, seven breeds are
mentioned, including what we should now call jumpers or creepers, and
likewise fowls with black feathers, bones, and flesh. In 1600 Aldrovandi
describes seven or eight breeds of fowls, and this is the most ancient
record from which the age of our European breeds can be inferred. The
_Gallus Turcicus_ certainly seems to be a pencilled Hamburgh; but Mr.
Brent, a most capable judge, thinks that Aldrovandi "evidently figured what
he happened to see, and not the best of the breed." Mr. Brent, indeed,
considers all Aldrovandi's fowls as of impure breed; but it is a far more
probable view that all our breeds since his time have been much improved
and modified; for, as he went to the expense of so many figures, he
probably would have secured characteristic specimens. The Silk fowl,
however, probably then existed in its present state, as did almost
certainly the fowl with frizzled or reversed feathers. Mr. Dixon[394]
considers Aldrovandi's Paduan fowl as "a variety of the Polish," whereas
Mr. Brent believes it to have been more nearly allied to the Malay. The
anatomical peculiarities of the skull of the Polish breed were noticed by
P. Borelli in 1656. I may add that in 1737 one Polish sub-breed, viz. the
golden spangled, was known; but judging from Albin's description, the comb
was then larger, the crest of feathers much smaller, the breast more
coarsely spotted, and the stomach and thighs much blacker: a
golden-spangled Polish fowl in this condition would now be of no value.

_Differences in External and Internal Structure between the {248} Breeds:
Individual Variability._--Fowls have been exposed to diversified conditions
of life, and as we have just seen there has been ample time for much
variability and for the slow action of unconscious selection. As there are
good grounds for believing that all the breeds are descended from