3-11-1987
Dear
Bill,
By
an amazing coincidence I mentioned your name in a letter to Fred Jeffrey and
before mailing it got one from him mentioning you. This is surprising because
I have known Fred since we were at Rutgers University in 1940 but we have not
corresponded much until the last 5 years. I don’t need to tell you he is a
good head.
I
have read your mimeographs on the domestic fowl with great interest and
eagerly await the jungle fowl book. The Muscovy papers you sent me were
surprising but not really full of new information. I had already photostat
Kimball’s paper on the origin of the fowl before Fred’s letter arrived. He
probably has already sent them to you but I’ll enclose them just in case.
Kimball was probably right about the interbreeding of the four species but
wrong because he didn’t deal with an extinct ancestor. Hutt at least dealt
the whole deck.
I
only met Kimball once and was not impressed but in retrospect he was a unique
man. Fred knew him very well. I think they imbibed a few martinis together and
discussed Sherlock Holmes. My problem is that color patterns are just not my
game.
I
have not had access to the old books you mentioned but I could because we have
good interlibrary loan and it would not be too much trouble to go to the
Poultry Library at Beltsville USA. Part of my problem is just what you
mention, they copied from one another. I have however gone to the National
Biblioteck in Paris and translated Belon’s papers on the Muscovy duck. He
couldn’t copy from anyone cause he was first. I confess I never looked to
see if he did anything with the fowl. I recall he described the turkey and
called it coq d’Indie. The middle
French is hard going for me and the book is so old 1555 they will not permit
you to make a photocopy.
You
did not I think mention Johanssen of Oregon. I understand he was in India this
summer tracking the fowl. If he is new to you will send the address. I suppose
you have checked Mason’s book, don’t remember who did the chicken but my
pen pall George Clayton handled the dicks and well. His paper on the Effect of Artificial Selection on Reproduction in Avian Species,
1973, J.Reprod.Fert.Supplement 15:1 gives an interesting angle to the question
of natural selection under domestication. He missed the boat on the origins
though thinking only the four species were involved. But after 8 years of
searching and no help from Fred, I found in this paper an explanation of the
origin of the name bantam!
I
will send you the Muscovy paper one of these days but must do some updating. I
see you don’t use a word processor. In a way that is good. It’s too hard
to change anything so one tends not do. But with the document stored in the
computer and being easy (after you get organized) to change, never want to do
a print out until I have put in the latest wrinkle.
I
am 73 and since you have so much time I suggest you get a simple computer. I
think I would not bother with this study if I did not have a computer. It’s
just too difficult. I hope this finds you well. Be of good cheer.
P.S.
Hope my little story on the Fulvous interests you.
The
Fulvous Duck is widely distributed in the Americas. But it is an East Indian
not a native America species. Fulvous is one of eight species that make up
the genus Dendrocygna. They are
somewhere between a goose and a swan in the same sense that a Muscovy is
between a goose and a duck.
Not
much is really known about Fulvous. Delacour wrote of the
scanty knowledge of its habits and behavior. Its name seems contrived.
Fulvous just means brownish tan or tawney
color. It is called a Tree Duck but is much less arboreal than the Perching
Ducks and rarely roosts. It is called a whistling duck but it takes some
imagination to imagine their squeaky voices as a whistle.
Fulvous
is naturally a very tame duck (but not the tamest of the species), and
therein lies a fascinating story. From time immemorial the Indians of
Central and South America have kept tame ducks as household and village
pets. This is not so unusual, the natives of East Africa and of Bengal keep
tame ducks as well. Besides being companions and a response to the human caring
urge, these animals serve a very useful purpose as village watchdogs, to sound the alarm, scavengers, insect and snake killers
and as a live source of feathers.
South
American Indians are fond of the Fulvous Duck, the Muscovy, and the
Curassows as pets. This raises the question, Fulvous and Curassow, although
just as tame, not domesticated?
The
answer lies in the preadaptive
traits of each species. The Curassow fails the test straightaway because the
female lays only two eggs and is not dependably broody when living in
contact with humans. The Fulvous lays more eggs but is monogamous (meaning
the eggs may not be fertile) and Delacour claims they never
succeed in rearing their young and that their rather small ducklings are
better entrusted to a bantam hen.
Delacour
feels that Fulvous ducklings fall an easy prey to vermin and should be
reared in rat proof enclosures. This inspires me to note that the rat
arrived in the New World with Columbus. They could not have been a factor in
the failure of the South American Indians to domesticated Fulvous.
On
the other hand, the Muscovy is promiscuous, an indeterminate layer, i.e., if
eggs are destroyed the duck lays some more, a dependable natural incubator,
and a fiercely protective defender of her young. In a way the Muscovy is
self-domesticating.
The
Fulvous duck has the greatest range of any species of bird. It is found from
California to Argentina, East Africa, Madagascar, India, Ceylon, and Burma.
There is no variation in the appearance of Fulvous over this very wide
range. The birds of South America look the same as the birds of India and
they interbreed freely.
This
means that the widely separated populations have not been apart more than a
few hundred of perhaps a thousand years, a moment in geologic time. It is
4000 miles from East Africa to Brazil. Fulvous is not salt tolerant nor a
migratory flyer like the Mallard. How did Fulvous get to the Americas?
Glenn
Whitley did a PHD Thesis at the University of Texas on Tame
Birds in the Americas. He used linguistics to trace the spread of
Fulvous in South America and found that, whatever the language of the local
Indians, their names for Fulvous tend to fall into two groups of cognates.
Each group of names for Fulvous can be traced back to one of the tribes of
natives who once lived in the Amazon basin and subsequently spread over
South and Central America. And the names in one group resemble the name for
Fulvous in Bengal, the names of the other group resemble the name for
Fulvous in Burma.
It
is now widely realized that boat building and navigation began in Southeast
Asia long before the Vikings sailed West.
Hindu
traders regularly sailed to East Africa so it is not surprising to learn
that tame ducks with Hindu names are found in East Africa as well as in
India. But the trail of the Fulvous Duck suggests that the Hindu traders
probably extended their voyages on to South America. Did the Hindu discover
America many centuries before Columbus and bring the Fulvous with them?
This
idea should not stretch the imagination too much. Favorable ocean currents
would bring the Hindu sailors from the west coast of Africa to the East
coast of Brazil in same vicinity from which the two Indian tribes and their
tame ducks dispersed over South America. Whitley also notes that the native
fisherman at the mouth of the Amazon still use a Hindu-type aft with a Hindu
name.
Written
history seriously limits the possibility of understanding the past and we
must depend on archaeological and in this case linguistic evidence. This
theory is admittedly based on purely circumstantial evidence, but isn’t
fascinating that a duck would provide the clue?
Oh,
in case you wondered, if the Hindu sailors travelled south along the coast
of South America, they would have picked up a favorable current that would
have taken them back to the Cape of Good Hope.