Professor Roy Crawford
University of Saskatchewan - Saskatoon - Canada

30-5-1985

Dear Professor Crawford,

I thank you very much for your very welcome letter of 25th April. I must apologise for the delay in answering your letter but I have just spent some time in hospital having an eye operation which had some complications thus restricting my activities. I have sent you a copy of my Chicken Bone Recoveries under separate cover by surface mail. It will take a little time to reach you per that medium but should arrive OK in due time. I may take you up on your offer of copies of some of your references if I experience any difficulties. I will try through our channels out here first. Thanks so much for your offer. I would be most interested Ping-Ti Ho’s paper as I believe lots of our answers may come from China and as you say the Oriental literature is not easy to come by. I have written recently to a suggested contact on mainland China but as yet received no reply.

I received a photostat from a book from the University of Tokyo some years ago but it is in Japanese (old style I believe). If you have any means of getting it translated I would be only too pleased to send you a copy. I have no way of knowing whether it contains any useful information. It’s the old story regarding Ping-Ti Ho’s find. No intensive further study on the bones recovered. Further study is necessary for us to obtain answers.

If you have any difficulty obtaining Mrs Rodwell’s paper I can get a copy of the relevant chicken information. I think these discoveries in China throw new light on the early history of the Chicken. We may have to revise our thinking to some extent. I believe much more interest is being shown by British Archaeologists in the origins of the Domestic Fowl. This is most encouraging. I recently received a letter and paper from Dr Colin Harrison of the British Museum. Fossil remains recovered in England and studied by Dr Harrison was considered by him to be a different species of Jungle Fowl which he named Gallus europaeus. His paper came from Journal of Archaeological Science 1978, 5, 373-376 and may be of interest to you. I noted your interest in genetics. This is another of the subjects I am interested with regard to the Domestic Fowl. I have for many years been involved in the breeding of domestic fowl for exhibition and some few years back did some practical experimental work on introducing the Columbian pattern into the Pekin (Cochin Bantam). I did a paper on my work. A close friend of mine did work on making Leg-Bars and Anco-Bars. There is also a paper on his experiments. We had difficulty finding any information on the Anco-Bars. The only paper was written by Lamoreux. However my friend did meet with some success. If you would like a copy of these two papers I could send them to you.

The study of genetics is very fascinating. I only wish I had begun study on the subject 20 years ago. I am now of 64 years of age so don’t think I’ll find time to get too involved. I have the literature, Punnett, Bateson, Hutt and others, but not having had an academic background find some difficulties in understanding the finer points. Your suggestion of continuing our correspondence is very acceptable and I will look forward to doing so. So hoping to hear from you in the not distant future, sincerely yours,