September 16, 1988

Dear Mr Plant,

I received your second tape and I can say you this tape was quiet and clear spoken and very well to understand. I must apologise writing back so late. But many letters came in and it costs less time to answer a letter as to answer a tape.

What you told about the real Australian breeds of poultry is very interesting. For us in Europe we only know the Australorp as an Australian breed of poultry. 10 days ago I permitted myself a free day and I went first by train to Utrecht to see over a lot of books and found a pretty book about quails, pheasants, jungle fowl and other wild fowl. Later that day I took another train to Amsterdam and found a book The King of Fowls  by Mark Marshall, second edition published by Saiga Publishing Co. England 1981. First published in 1958 in Australia. You must know this book or the original Australian copy. It contents forwards, an introduction, a ballad by Young Tarpot and chapters on Australian Game Fowl, Old English Game Fowl and varieties and the Australian Pit Game  Fowl, 5 color plates and some black drawings by the author. I have not read it all now, but it seems very interesting for me. I do hope that you can read my letter yourself this time; or are you still waiting for the transplantation?

About 20 years ago I got a years file of Grit and Steel with some vary good articles on Japanese breeds of Game fowl. But also a lot of local game news, useless for me.

What you say about more languages we learn, I must say English is a world wide language and the Dutch area is small only the Netherlands, half of Belgium and some of South Africa. So we have to learn more and the best is English, but I also learned some German and some French, which is nice for reading poultry book from these countries. English is my best foreign language, I understand German very well and my French is poor.

I am sorry for you that you had to miss the lecture about the investigation of Mr Langdon (I hope I understand this well).

Don’t apologize for my trouble to listen your tape. To speak slowly and clear is very tiring and on the last part of the tape I can hear you are tired and the tape is less understandable. But you and I do the best we can and we can hope that in the future you are able to use the typewriter again.

I got the 1988 Yearbook of the ABA and there was in an article of George Carter Before Columbus. The point is Chickens were carried to America at one time from India and at another time from Japan, and there could well have been other introductions which have escaped notice. The article was reprinted from North American, Ellsworth, Maine. There is nothing new in the article, Carter corresponded with Hoffmann about the Muscovy duck and later Hoffmann asked Carter’s opinion about Finsterbusch’s theory about the Malay type fowl and the jungle fowl. I think most amateurs with a little interest in fowl know about the different types of fowl. In fact 3 groups, the jungle types, the Malaioid  types and the Cochin types. And all the different mingled types of poultry.

Bill, I wish you the best with your eyesight and I really hope that meanwhile your problem is solved. I am entering my busy time now, doing one or two judge jobs a week and doing my work on the chickens and the house in my spare time. But understand, I love it do it, and that takes us busy.

Sincerely,