February 1st 1989

Dear Bill,

Thank you for your letter dated Jan 27 which was very good written. Enclosed I send you 2 clippings of a German poultry paper with pictures of 2 rumpless female chickens, the Kaulhuhn is a common European rumpless and an Araucana. It is easy to see that the last has a longer back, because she has one vertebra more as the Kaulhuhn has. That one vertebra is special for the Araucana.

I have a book on Japanese fowls. There is a breed which is rumpless, the Uzura-O chicken. There is also a rumpless variety of the Japanese Bantam or Chabo. Pictures are in the famous poultry number of the National Geographic Magazine of April 1927. Rumplessness is a lethal factor when breeding the birds. Therefore breeders often bred a rumpless bird to one with a tail. Therefore these varieties throw birds with tail from time to time which keep them able to duplicate. Japan, being islands, imported all kind of chickens before 1636 and developed the birds in their own way. There was no contact for more as 200 years with other countries in this period, it was forbidden to build vessels and to sail for the Japanese. The only contact they had was with the Dutch trade center on the small island Decima. This period lasted from 1636-1865. Japan cannot have been so important in exporting poultry during that time, but there are signals of Japanese poultry in the Netherlands on old paintings from that period.

In the book of Houwink from which I quoted about the chicken bones, there is also a part on the poultry culture in Australia round 1909. He writes for his book (part II 1909): "The oldest type of fowl in NSW is the Asiatic type, imported centuries ago by sailors and bred by the people of Australia. It was a certain game fowl, from which the beautiful Australian Game fowl is bred and his miniature the Australian Game Bantam. A wild fowl (chicken) never existed in Australia."

I do hope it is better with your eyes now, or you can find a reader for my letter. Is there a chance to have a transplant now?

I am very glad with your file of books. It happens that I have 2 baby-Cochin bantams from imported eggs only 2 weeks now but promising birds. By seeing the wings it must be a pair. They are mottled. I never had them earlier. I never was breeding so late in the season, but I have eggs in the incubator. In fact this is too much work for me.

Wishing you the best, sincerely,