chattering on gallus - correspondence of William Plant

April 26 1995

Dear Bill

There has been a gap in our correspondence I had a stroke about two months ago. I had to regain my speech, ability to read, and finally to write, though still with some difficulty. Many thanks for your many mailing, all very helpful. What can I do for you? I have a number of the Japanese papers. I have little success so far in getting dates on chicken bones, but we are going on trying.

On origins I am firmly in your camp. I think that the Malay is quite separate from the others. It seems to be that there are basically three races. I used Race for broad groupings Breeds are minor groups, today the result of breeders work.

I find your comment that the length of the gut in the Malay is half the length of the rest of the chickens be most important. What is your source? I have never read Darwin and Tegetmeir and their argument - (I am sure that it is in the library).

I must go back and re read Ball on Polynesia. I will one of these days be asking you for help on understanding the kinds of chickens described by Pridgen(?) in cock fighting in South America. They are all said to be Malays including the melanotic chickens in this and called fighters. In everything the Malay is different. No wattles! Short gut. Prefers open sites. etc I at times wonder if the birds could even fly - marrow and interior structures in their bones?? True?? This defines a bird on the verge of becoming flightless and that normally appears in island locations with few predators.

I have listed some of the characteristics of the major races: Cochin as one type, Mediterranean as another, and the Malay the other. The Mediterranean seems to be closest to the Wild. The Cochin looks like a chicken with dwarf characteristics (short legs and legs) but very large heavy bodies, and I would think of a Chinese selection for a fluffy feathered, feathered legged with head feather puffs, and a heavy body—all excellent adaptation to cold. This includes tames, perhaps because they were kept close as they would have to be in a cold winter area Even the reduced combs would be advantageous in avoiding freezing They are also notable for not stopping laying as soon as the cold sets in. So I think of them as cold adapted chickens I would bet if we had information on the Russian types that they show very much the same traits.

As is obvious I do not think in the normal tracks, and Hoffmann falls into a frenzy when he reads my aberrations I will include a scribbly table of differences and similarities. And of course the chickens in Indians hands in America come out Asiatic. More later I did want you to know what happened.

Original - small Jungle Fowl

Malay - later crossed by Jungle Fowl - increase in size? See below.

Blends

Cochin x ? = Brahma - other large breeds?

Or is the size Malay x ? whatever?

A substratum of small near wild chickens is common.

Large size is local - Mostly NE Asia?

Malay really does not give size - only length, they are not heavy.

It looks more and more as if the large, heavy breeds are a cold adaptation that arose in China.

A friend South India described the chickens as having only a little more meat than a pigeon.

One report said to be in a recent study of Hawaii that Polynesian only brought the Malays for ritual wild examples still on the island.

The antiquity for man in Hawaii has just been moved 500 for so centuries.

Enough. This is thinking on paper. Thoughts are not the Ten Commandments, but trying out ideas.

Would like to have copies of some of the Japanese papers? Lots on the Jungle Fowl, lots of measurements.

I would conclude (subject to change any days!):

Mediterranean	ca 1500 BC chickens carried to the Mediterranean probably first to Egypt. Oddity: the relative rare (?) white eggs layers with the type introduced close to the wild. Learned incubation from the Egyptians developed the non-brooders for continuous laying. This type persists. Breeds for eggs and meat maintained the Medieval time in the Monasteries.
China	Very early introduction. Development of a cold adaptation type. The Cochin. Though. Spreads inland Siberia-Russia to Eastern Europe. Orloff as the type? A cold type before the later heavy types were selected out?
Malay	An island form. Developed in considerable freedom from predation. Was following the Moa pattern, loss (income) of flights, beginning of giantism, specialty on shore, an abundance of proteins (crabs, crawfish, worms, etc). Develops a short gut adapt to protein diet.

Questions crossed with Jungle Fowl? Extreme form then goes extinct? Or, the present Malay is it?

Notes

India today has many very small chickens, Philippines, Polynesia, very small either wild or very close to it. Japan native races are small. Only these chickens incorporate dori/tori names the introduced chickens. 16th century introductions never have dori in their names. The Chinese chickens reached China in the 1890’s from England!

Major Groups (Races)

	Mediterranean	Cochin	Malay
egg	white	brown	brown
eggs vary	white, cream (usually called tinted), brown, rare in America only blue green. Somehow: preference or accident of introduction, white in the Mediterranean
tail m	showy 30°	short	showy ¯ 30°
fighting	in air	little?	on the ground 1
character	flighty-nervous	tame	?
spurs m	upcurved	strait	strait?
wings	proportions	very short	small?
	like wild flyers
legs	proportions	very short	very long
	like wild flyers
posture	normal	normal	very erect
body	light	heavy	light for size
broody 2	none	good	good
gut length	normal	normal	½ of normal
preferred habitat	wood field	farm yard	upon, even beaches 3
feathering	tight (smooth)	fluffy	scant
wattles	paired	paired	absent 4
puffs	none	common	none
feathered legs	no	yes	no
use	used	In Asia in general largely ritual	the same as Cochin?
religion	identical religious uses common through Asia (an appear in America
names	enormous variations recorded by Wallace. Elsewhere a great uniformity: Polynesia one word, Malay one word, Chine one word, Ecuador several, Maya many.
1 - I read they cold and never let go 2 - implies a very long period of use of artificial hatching and enormous specializing on egg production 3 - suggests an island origin 4 - naked throat and naked strip extend down the breast