Dr Elio Corti
Valenza - Italy

12-12-1995

Dear Elio,

My apologies for not writing sooner but I have had a problem, it is a very painful problem: shingles, which I am told is a virus of chickens pox which lays dormant for many years and then can activate in the nerve ends under the skin. I have a rash around my stomach and back. The doctor put me on a course of antibiotics which don’t appear to be very effective. I have not felt like doing very much at all over the last week or so. Very painful.

Thank you so much for the Christmas cards and envelopes. They are very good. You are so kind to me. The pages you sent also are good. I have been thinking perhaps a good name for the book would be Research notes on the Domestic Fowl. What do you think?? I would organise sketches of Red Junglefowl, Malay and Cochin for the cover page.

Regarding the Ex Libris design: looks OK. Enclosed details from the Travel Agent. They suggest travelling Quantas Sydney to London and return, British Airways London to Milan and return. This can be organised in same ticket. Cost Quantas and BA is the same. Unfortunately there are no cheap deals. I would organise airport tax, visa for France, insurance etc here.

No visa required for UK, Italy etc, only for France just in case I had to travel through that territory. I am enclosing copy of letter from Travel Agent for your approval. I am working on the passport. Should be no problem there.

I have the Rhode Island material ready for printing as soon as Tony gets time. I had a letter from Rich. She suggests I write again to China which I will do shortly. There may be further information. Also had a letter from Carefoot. He is working on a new gene, chocolate. I advised him we may visit him.

I sent the material to Romanov. He will have plenty to study. The Pekin book plus I think 6 of my books. It must be very hard for them in Russia as they don’t get very much money. It must be hard for them to live. I have not read all of the Orloff paper yet but it seems very interesting.

I think I told you about the Dutch-English magazine. In the latest issue they published one of my articles (copy enclosed). I have not heard anything from the Government regarding assistance for research but will keep working on it.

I will write more later. The medical problem (shingles) has slowed me down. I have not felt like doing anything much at all. I hope you and your mother have a very happy Christmas and new year. I will be spending Christmas with David and Chris. Joyce with her family from down the way. Her other will be coming from Sydney. All for now.

Regards.

 

Vol. I N 8 - 1995

Thoughts on the origins of domestic fowl

For over twenty years I have been carrying out research into the Origin, Evolution, History and Distribution of the Domestic Fowl and, although I have published some of the results of this research, the over-all study requires a lot more work to be done.

Unfortunately, there does not appear to have been much work done in this field in the past. Although material has been published, it generally follows on from Charles Darwin’s deliberations that all domestic fowl are descended from only the Red Jungle Fowl - Gallus bankiva. Many writers have taken this for granted, without doing any further research into the subject. With all respect to Darwin, who did some very great work, I find it hard to understand his thinking on this matter. As far as I can see, he offered no explanation to the question of where the Red Jungle Fowl came from in the evolutionary process which was, after all, his forte.

I collected all the material that I could locate throughout the world but was not satisfied that the Red Jungle Fowl was the sole progenitor of our Domestic Fowl. I firmly believe, as do others who have studied the subject, that there were at least three lines of descent from an extinct ancestor to form the nucleus of our domestic fowl of today.

We have, of course, 1) the Gallus bankiva and associated species: Gallus sonnerati, Gallus lafayettei and Gallus varius, 2) the Malay, Gallus giganteus (Temminck) and 3) the Asiatics (Brahma, Langshan, Cochin), which I choose to tag as Gallus pluma cruris (feathered shank). The make up of the aforementioned are as different as chalk and cheese and I find it hard to come to terms with the fact that these other species, as I would prefer to call them, could evolve from the Red Jungle Fowl alone. As a source of reference, I would suggest the reader go to C.A. Finsterbusch’s Cock fighting all over the world.

During recent years, information has emerged which does, I believe, shed a different light on the general movement of the domestic fowl. Originally, the first mention of domestic fowl told us that they were present in the Indus Valley at around 2500 BC, migrating first to the east and then north to China. However, that has all changed. Excavations done by Professor Higham of the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand, in North East Thailand uncovered chicken bones at a burial area at Ban Chiang. These bones were dated around 3500 BC and, in the different layers, three different sizes of bones were discovered. They were identified as the Jungle Fowl, Malay type (large) and an intermediate size which could possibly have been the Aseel. This supports the theory that the Malay is a separate species. At a later date, more chicken bones were unearthed at Cishan in Northern China. These were dated at around 5000 to 6000 BC!! The bones from China appear to be of Jungle Fowl nature and I believe are considered as such. I do not know of anyone who has done any work in linking these three findings together and doing any study on the matter. My research has been of a private nature and consequently has its disadvantages in comparison with a researcher who is attached to a University or some such institution. One thing that have found in my quest is that it has been necessary to explore allied subjects and sciences to gather information - a most satisfactory procedure, with surprising things cropping up in the strangest places.

There has always been a problem regarding the presence of chickens in the Americas prior to Columbus. The opinion was always that there were no chickens in pre-Columbian times. However, Professor George F. Carter of the Texas A.&M. University has never subscribed to this theory: over the years he has collected evidence which is strongly in favour of chickens being in the New World prior to Columbus. He has rocked a few boats and encountered quite a deal of opposition in this field.

The matter of chicken distribution in the Pacific is of course of a later dating. It would seem that there is a possibility of distribution both from the east and for the west. Thor Heyerdahl proved with his La Balsa raft expeditions that a possible source could have been from the east. There does, however, seem little doubt that much of the distribution came from South East Asia, moving eastward from island group to island group. From my observations through yachting fiends, the chickens in the Fiji group and west appear to be a motley lot, although evidently stemming from the original Jungle Fowl of South East Asia.

As mentioned previously, I have collected quite a deal of material but even so, there are really no positive conclusions that can be reached. This, I believe, is because of the fact that too few people are involved in the study of the origins of the domestic fowl. I have followed some leads which looked promising but ended up against a brick wall. All we can do is to keep searching, hoping for a breakthrough. I believe we need to move on and seek the origin of Gallus itself - before the Jungle Fowl. The project will be difficult, because no-one has ever taken the subject on. I have endeavoured to give some idea of what we know of the origin of the domestic Fowl, but this is really only scratching the surface of a very satisfying but sometimes frustrating study. I would be pleased to hear from anyone who can add anything to this matter.

(W.J. Plant)