May 14, 1989

Dear Bill:

This rainy Sunday I picked up your Chicken in the Pacific  for a second reading.

Who was Langdon? Do you have a copy of his lecture. I would like to get a copy.

Are there fowl in the Pacific that lay blue eggs? Naked necks?

If I am asking questions that are answered in your writings, please forgive me. But you do have a mass of material and I am basically interested in ducks.

Could you give me a more complete reference to the O’Strander book on the Jungle Chicken?

I will be keenly interested in the translation of the origin of the chicken from the Japanese.

Having reread your material I am going to send it on to George Carter who is more into bones and linguistics than I.

Please let me know if you would like a copy of my history of the Muscovy duck in which I reveal the source of the name and my ideas on the dispersion of the duck around the world.

Also do you have the paper on the wild chickens bantams actually of the Philippines which appeared in the Yearbook of the American Bantam Ass’n some years back? If not, whistle. (There are also wild chickens in the mountains of Taiwan, also small.)

Your reference to Darwin prompts this:

The jungle fowl has a single comb. Your Giant Malay type has a pea comb. Do you see any survival value to either?

Isn’t naked neck a Malay trait?

If you learn anything about the domestication of the duck from your Chinese or Japanese contacts, please pass them on.

All the best.