January
21, 1985
Dear
Mr Plant,
Reading
your second part of the book about evolution, history and distribution of the
domestic fowl, I have got a deep respect for your research on these subjects.
On
page 9 of your book, you quote from the letter of Prof Carter and he mentioned
the Dutch book of R.Houwink De
Hoenderrassen orThe breed of
Fowl as I translate the Dutch title. This book is well known here
from libraries and collectors of old poultry books and the Dutch Poultry
Association has a plan to re-edit the book, but the price will be very high,
about 200 guilders, that is about 60 dollar now.
Houwink
was a shopkeeper in colonial produce, a grocer. He was a poultry fancier like
you and me without an academic training on the subject of his book (4 parts).
But he had read all the books about it. He admired Darwin and also Mendel,
whose laws on heredity were re-discovered in the first years of the century.
In his book (1909) he quote all the older writers on poultry as Temminck
(l817), Bechstein (1801), Aldrovandi (1600), Columella (2 b.C.) and many
others. For your study the part of the fossil bones is important. So Houwink
quotes Prof L.H.Jeitteless (Zool. Garden 1873):
"New
research has proven that in the tertiary period species of fowl existed in
Europe. In the younger period (quartary), the period of the mammoth, there
were two varieties of a Bankiva-like fowl contemporary of people. Fowl in the
latter stone period became extinct and in the tertiary period was introduced
again. Poultry has been spread in prehistoric time from further India and
China to Middle and East Asia. Poultry was
known as the Celts and Teutons long before the Roman empire was known
and it came not to the Celts and the Teutons people via Italy, but direct from
the Orient through South Russia Poland and Hungary, with the people when they
were invading Europe."
Houwink
also quote Victor Hehn’s book Culture
plants and domestic animals in their coming from Asia (1902):
"There
is a close relation between the languages of all old people and the names of
domestic poultry. The Teutons call the chicken hana,
all Teutonic tribes know this name. In Dutch haan
(cock), hen (hen), hoen (fowl). Slavonians and Lithuanians have always lived
apart from the Teutons they gave the chicken an other name."
Houwink
writes that he visited the Museum of natural history at Leiden, and he found
there a very large collection of the 4 well known wild jungle fowl with their
skeletons, also several very important crossings of these 4 jungle fowls and
crossings of the jungle fowls with domestic fowl of Java. So he could compare
skulls and legs of wild Jungle fowl with crosslings and tamed Bankiva’s and
fossil skulls and legs, which are described by Prof L.H.Jeitteless. He quotes:
"Gallus
of the tertiary period. GALLUS BRAVARDI found by Bravard in volcanic tuff of
Ardes near Issoire (France), Puy de Dome (Pliocene period) piece of a chicken
leg. This Gallus variety stand in size between peacock and domestic fowl
according to Gervais. It resembled much a leg of a tamed fowl. Gervais found
earlier piece of a leg at Cadillac, not the same as Gallus
bravardi.
"GALLUS
AESCULAPII Phasianus Archiaci. From the Miocene period of Pikerni near Athens
(Greece). Bull. Soc. Geolog.d.France 1862.
"Gallus
of the Quartairy period. GALLUS FROM THE BELGIAN CAVES. Schmerling found in
the caves in the surroundings of Luik (Liège) remains of domestic fowl among
bones of extinct animals: elephants, bears, hyena’s etc. Size of a domestic
chicken and a smaller one but same variety.
"GALLUS
OF THE BELGIAN CAVES SMALL VARIETY. A.M.Edwards found in
the caves of Lhern (Ariège, France) among bones of bears, rhinoceros,
foxes, a complete leg of a cock male, but a little shorter as a Bankiva male,
but a little brooder. The spur was weak, seems to have been long. The leg
resembles much the one Schmerling found.
"Gallus of the young Quaternary period. Dr P.Rütimeyer found in the pile-dwellings dated in the bronze age in Switzerland a leg of a cock male, at Morges at the lake of Geneva. Dr Rütimeyer believes that this fossil looks as from a younger age. Also were found chicken legs in the terremare and palafitte of Parmeci and in the terremare of S.Ambrogio, places almost equal to the pile-dwellings"
Palafitte
= pile-dwelling, terremare = bottom or soil of a lake.
This
was Houwink about the fossils of chickens in Europe found before 1909. It
proves that in Europe there lived poultry in the time between the ice ages and
the climate must have been tropical in that time.
Comparing
the skulls of wild jungle fowl with species of skulls Darwin describes in one
of his books, Houwink concluded that the skull of Bankiva of Darwin must have
been a tamed Bankiva because it was larger as the skull of the wild jungle
fowl. So far Houwink’s book.
It
is worth mentioning that the late Van Gink, the famous poultry illustrator,
sketched a part of the illustrations in Houwink’s book. Van Gink was very
young when he did this, it was its start in this art, that he did his whole
life, and of course his later illustrations proofed to be much better as his
first work. Van Gink had a job at a bank at that time, but he resigned from
the bank to be able to sketch full time. He studied poultry science and was a
well known fancier and a poultry and pigeon judge. He wrote several books and
was editor and writer of poultry magazines. In the Dutch standard of 1960 he
wrote about the oldest Dutch breeds of poultry:
"The
Drenthe fowl, being in the first years of this century almost extinct, are a
part of the old European common fowl, together with the Frisians, Groninger
Mew, East Frisian Mew, Hamburger, Campine and Ardenner fowl. From their origin
is little known. First it was supposed, these old European fowl were the
descendants of the Bankiva jungle fowl, tamed in East Asia and
via different routes come to NW Europe. Later research gave motive for
the development of a theory that the European fowl are the tamed descendants
in Europe living wild fowl, which are, in contrast to the Asiatic wild jungle
fowl, totally extinct since long.
Further one goes more and more to the opinion, that the domestic breeds of
poultry don’t are descended exclusively from the Bankiva and probably are
descended from more different breeds of wild fowl.
"Crossings have proofed that the wild species are fertile among themselves. In form and statue as in type of feathering is little difference. Concerning colour and pencilling, there are certain resemblances and certain differences."
So
far the text in the Dutch standard of Mr Van Gink.
I
think we owe the large knowledge of jungle fowl in the Netherlands to the fact
that Indonesia was for centuries a part of the Dutch Kingdom. The jungle fowl
were studied at Java by Dutch scientists and all the knowledge is stored in
libraries and Museums as in Leiden, the town with the oldest Dutch University.
We
had 4 weeks of very cold weather with snow and ice and I am very glad that it
was raining yesterday and now we can see the green grass again and I could
open the chicken house this morning end let the birds out in the garden, I had
to keep the birds in the house because of the strong freezing. The coldest
night it was -24°C and this we don’t have for more as 20 years.
I
do hope you understand the quotations from Houwink’s book and the quotation
from the old Dutch Standard. There are countries or places where is it not
possible to talk about the origin of life, people can believe the Bible and
take this to the letter. I have a fellow-judge who wants not to talk about
evolution, only about Creation. This must be the reason that there is not so
much written about the subject, but there many proofs to believe other
developments of the live on earth.
On
your side of the globe it is summer now and we saw on TV, it is hot and it is
burning there. I hope not in your surrounding. With a Friendly greeting.
Sincerely