Dr
Elio Corti
Valenza
- Italy
24-9-1994
Dear
Elio,
I
thank you for your interesting letter and cheque. I hope the other books don’t
take too long to reach you. Please let me know when they arrive and any
comment you may have.
Yes,
I was happy to receive the recognition from Prof Crawford. It made me feel
that my efforts over the years had not been wasted. I trust that my work may
assist others who wish to pursue the subject. I do have a deal of further
material which I did not publish. Perhaps I may make a copy of the material
for you at some future date. Do you have a copy of my booklet on Gallus
species - Jungle Fowl? I have the feeling that you do. Veronica had some of
them for sale. You may have obtained one from her.
I
am pleased you have received Clive Carefoot’s book. I am sure you will find
both his and Jeffrey’s books most interesting for your study.
I
received a letter from Fred Jeffrey a couple of weeks ago with some
interesting information on my present research which I will write about later.
Glad
you found some information on the Yokohama. I will search for some more.
Regarding
the word Pile our English language
is somewhat complicated at times. We spell this word PILE. The Americans PYLE.
English word COLOURED is American COLORED. CENTRE is American CENTER. The
Americans spell the word the way it is pronounced. We don’t always do it
this way. Also many English words are spelt the same have different meanings
and pronounced differently for example the word ROW can mean to ROW a boat or
ROW pronounced differently means to make a noise. If you would like I could
perhaps make a cassette tape explaining some of these things. I do not speak
any other languages unfortunately except the Morse code which is involved with
my amateur radio.
Speaking
of this, fine on your cousin and friend of his being radio amateurs. I have
spoken over the years to many amateurs in Italy as well as other countries all
over the world. I am enclosing my card for cousin and will make a few notes on
the back of it. They will understand the frequencies I operate on and will
know the times when conditions are favourable for contact with Australia. At
the moment we are at the bottom of sunspot cycle (11 year cycle) and
conditions are not good. However within a couple of years things should
improve. Perhaps we may talk with each other one of these days.
Your
trip to the Netherlands sounds interesting. I am sure you and Eduardo will
gain much informations. I used to correspond with Anna Banning Vogelpoel in
the Netherlands. She was very knowledgeable and wrote on Japanese (Chabo)
Bantams. I haven’t heard from Anna for some time. I hope she is OK.
Fine
Eduardo being Brazilian. I guess the coloured eggs I believe are spread pretty
much around South America. It seems to be the only stable trait involved with
Araucana.
Much
as been written on this breed, but as far as I can ascertain no one has come
up with a positive answer to the origin of the Araucana. I have my theory as
you would be aware from my booklets, but it is not necessarily the correct
answer.
Nobody
appears to have been able to get hold of what could be classed as a pure
Araucana. Some have pea combs, some are rumpless, there is variation in the
type of ear lobes, nothing remains stable. I have a lot of material that has
been written on the breed. Still nothing definite as to how they originated.
However
there is some interesting stuff amongst. One of our academics out here
suggested they originated on Easter Island. When I questioned his theory he
became quite upset. Heyerdahl advised me that when he first visited Easter
Island and stayed there for some months, there was no sign of blue eggs on
Easter. Perhaps one day I put a lot of this information together but I don’t
think it would serve much purpose, I think it would upset some people.
The
Fayoumi breed at the moment I do not know. I will go through my files and get
in touch with my Japanese radio amateur friend. It sounds like Japanese name.
It would appear that you have some friends in some European countries as
perhaps you may be able to obtain some information for me.
I
am presently investigating why we don’t get good distinct barring in breeds
other than Plymouth Rock. I thought perhaps it may be the difference in slow
and fast feathering. I wrote to Fred Jeffrey about this and he said he didn’t
think it was as simple as this but told me that when he was in Cologne in 1980
he saw Barred Leghorn with every but as good a barring as in the Plymouth
Rock. Could you find out perhaps whether these Leghorns are slow or fast
feathering? I guess they would come from Germany or Holland.
I
am enclosing a complementary copy of a small booklet on Old English Game
colours. It might explain PILE. Pile, Duckwing, Blue Red, Black Red. Same
pattern but colours different.
Please
excuse writing. My eyesight is very poor. I am suffering from glaucoma and
macular degeneration. I have had 2 cornea transplants on one eye and the other
eye has never been much good. It slows down my activities to some extent.
However I keep fairly good health otherwise I am 73 years old and hope to be
around for awhile as I still have a lot of work to do yet.
Regards.