26-1-1996
Dear
Bill,
Big
confusion with the mail. Your letter mailed December 18 arrived around 10 days
ago, the letter you forgot arrived right after 9 days. I reply to these two
letters and you don't reply too sooner, you must await for my reply to the
last letter you are writing or mailing.
The
scientific name of Shingles is Herpes
zoster, i.e. approximately, snake
(serpent = serpes = herpes - i.e. wandering) & belt
(zona in Greek). In Italy it's also called Fuoco di Sant'Antonio, St. Anthony
Fire, because St. Anthony the Abbot, born in 250-252 in Egypt, suffered of
this illness. The illness becomes from the reactivation of a herpes virus, the
same of the varicella of the boys (chickenpox), and this virus may stay quiet
years and years in the sensitive nervous spinal cells. One day this virus,
irritating the cells, gives pain and eruption in the skin by a reflex way,
because the virus is not in the skin, but in the nervous sensitive ganglia.
Good that now you are better. I can tell to you that you are again young and
in good health, because the old people and the emaciated people don't have
pain, or only few pain. Small but important consolation!!!
Don't
worry about the cover of your correspondence book. You prepare the sketches of
the fowls, and for the title no problems. We will have time to discuss and to
try with graphics.
Travel
Agent. I have informed my travel agent about the price and it seems too much
expensive. When he will have the new prices of the season, cheaper I think,
it's possible to send you the ticket pre-paid in Italy, assurance enclosed.
But, no problems, will resolve this point. You must only prepare yourself in
writing to Carefoot (done), Veronica, British Museum (Barbara West, if
possible), and I suggest also Annie Banning Vogelpoel, because think that we
go around on the Continent by car, and the Netherlands is in my plains. Try to
obtain from Annie when she is available, so we may program our trip.
A
little suggestion. You will be guest of the Entente
Européenne in Bergamo where they are present all the Presidents of
the European Breeders. I hope to have something from Brazil to give as
remembrance from South America and Fighting Cocks Clubs. In the same period
when you are in Valenza, will be present also the mother of Jeffrei, the
half-nephew of Eduardo. She will bring from Brazil something for these
Presidents. To you the choice of this little thing from Australia. I think
that the Presidents will be around 15-20.
Don't
forget the sketches, the last correspondence, the biographies. Later I will
send a list of some letter which is unreadable or lacking of little part. So,
you can photocopy what is missing. I hope you will receive soon a reply from
China as suggested by Rich. This is very important, because your line is to
demonstrate that the Malay is becoming not from Bankiva.
For
assistance from the Government I think that they are all useless words. The
Government looks only where is possible to gain money. And our fowls are not
money. They are only for crazy people.
Received
the photocopies of Somes' book. Thank you very much, even for other enclosed
things (Aboriginal culture and the article of Jerome Pratt). This material of
Pratt may stay at your home, because put it in your book directly. I need only
of your reply to Pratt.
My
compliments for your Newsletter. I can tell you that the person working on it,
the pagemaker, works very well. Who is this fellow?
I
read in the last page that you have 3 months of holidays in Italy. Yes, I
prefer 3 months!!! Two months are too much few. Let me know, as sooner as
possible, if it's a mistake or if your ticket will be for 3 months. Very
interesting the article of David about brown-red Pekin. I await for the
prosecution. In one letter you told me about the problem of the toes in leg
feathered fowls. I have found the references of material you have:
Carefoot:
at page 88 - Crawford: page 227 -
Brachydactily (By)
I
think that you can resolve all your doubts. In separate envelope I send an
article written for the Dutch friends of the Club of Belgian Bearded. You can
find your name inside.
Sorry,
but the article I wrote for my Association about my stay with you in Australia
is in Italian language. If David find somebody who is able to read and
translate contemporaneously, I think
that it may be an interesting article.
About
the ex libris I will prepare and cut for you. I have a
master copy of 16 ex libris per page. And it's difficult for you to
cut them. They are enclosed in the other envelope.
Now
I quote the problem I'm mailing to Hoffmann. This is an interesting problem,
similar to that of Atahualpa.
Now,
a little problem about which I desire your ideas. I think that you are
competent not only in Muscovy duck (as your superlative job demonstrates) but
even in other problems regarding animals as turkey. In this moment it's open a
bridge Valenza-Paris-Lisboa about the etymology of the word peru
as is called the turkey in Portuguese, only
by this word, and the female is perua.
My thesis would demonstrate that
the Portugueses called the turkey Ave do
Peru, may be in contraposition
of the Spaniards, who called it Pavo.
My thesis arises from the affirmation reported in Crawford's book: Schorger
(1966) states that they (turkeys)
were present in Peru before arrival of the
Spanish and may have be taken there from Nicaragua.
Do
you agree with Schorger? I don't know his works, and I think
that it's a little difficult for me to find them. I am also studying
the history of the Amazonas
conquest by the Portugueses. They were in
Peru, in Quito, now Ecuador, in 1637, when Teixeira overstepped the
Tordesilla's line. The presence of the word peru
in India, in Dravidian language, is too much easy: Goa was Portuguese.
Interesting also the true possibility of the arrival of the turkeys via Asia.
As you can read in Latin (from the ancient book I have, printed in Pavia,
Ticinum in Latin, because of the
river), the turkey was called Gallos
indicos, seu calecutenses. Calecutenses
not from Calcutta in Bangladesh, but from Calicut (today also called Kozhicode
- 420,000 inh.), near Goa, Kerala State. If you agree with Schorger, then peru for turkey becomes from
Peru. It would be easier for the Portugueses to call the turkey
Mexican bird, Spanish bird. They called it peru.
Each nation called the birds in
different ways: Numida meleagris is
Guinea fowl in English, Galinha d'Angola
in Portuguese, Faraona (note the
abbreviation, right is Gallina del
Faraone ) in Italian. And Faraona,
is not the wife of the Pharaoh, but it's implied the word Gallina del Hen of the etc.
The
same is for peru, which was Ave do Peru.
But, when the turkey was called peru
? Because I think that the Portugueses knew
this bird the first time in Europe, when Colombo or others took it in
Spain. Why the Portugueses preferred peru
! In the beginning of 1500 they don't was in Peru, but only in 1637.
Note
the big confusion about the birds' names in 1779: Gallos
indicos......alii ex Numidia primum venisse volunt: others tell that the
first time these cocks came from Numidia. But, Numidia is the land of Guinea
fowl !
Right
is this German Archiatra of the King of England, Georg Gottlob, when he tells
about India: quos ex India (seu novo orbe) i.e. or from the New World. This annotation and
specification is a clear contraposition to calecutenses,
because Calicut is in India, the old India, the true India. The German Welscher
Hahn is most generic, because it means Foreign fowl. This welscher
may becoming from anywhere.
Yesterday,
when I was in Pavia, 58 km from Valenza, to enter in the first touch with the
Editor, I found a very interesting thing: in Lithuania the turkey is called Kalakùtas. Obviously, from Calicut. The Professor who gave me the
information told also that the Lithuanian language is an old interesting
language, i.e. Indo-European of Baltic group.
Do
you think that I must enter in touch with Charmion McKusick, or Schorger? If
yes, do you have their addresses?
The
editor told me that my book will be divided in 3 books, 350 pages each. I
think that the previous title I said you, Summa
Gallicana would be the right title.
Dear
Bill, I enclose also the photocopy of this interesting old book, telling about
birds as medicaments.
I
am writing to Prof Carter to obtain unpublished material about precolumbian
chickens in the Americas, as suggested by Edmund.
I
am awaiting for your last letter. Don't reply to this. I embrace you.
I
prefer open this article, kindly requested by the President Hans Heemskerk, in
saying that I am very pleased and honoured in writing to the Netherlands’
Friends. But, I would like remember together with you the first time I was in
your land, in 1981, when, with my late wife, I visited nearly the whole your
country, and I was astonished in looking what a people was able to realise in
fighting, better than a fighting cock, against the natural adversities
represented by the water and by the sea. What I can tell in front of the
Afsluitdijk? I have a pocket-altimeter I used when, younger, I was walking in
our Alps, and I brought it to the Netherlands to measure if truly there was an
area laying below the sea level. Yes, it was true. I visited your big and
small enchanting towns, and in the zoological Gardens in Alphen I had the
first contact with the love you demonstrate towards the animals, but in that
period of my life I was unaware of hoenders,
and only ten years later I began in knowing the various breeds, their beauty,
and finally the great competence of the Dutch breeders.
Here,
in Italy, the breeders are fundamentally divided into two factions: the
admirers of the Germany, and the admirers of the Netherlands. I can put myself
in the second category, and I have my good motivations.
An
example: never I saw Andalusians better than I find in Zuidlaren show, edition
1994. A perfect lacing, present also in the legs. Another example: my Federal
President, Maurizio Tona, told me that an Italian fancier, owner of a group of
Bearded d’Anvers Quail arising from your Association’s Breeders, had the
luck to breed a very nice female, and that never he saw a similar female.
I
think that it’s almost useless to continue in telling about the high quality
of the animals you breed. I would like search with you the reasons of this. I
know that in the Netherlands you are able in breeding animals very hard to
bring up, for example, the Gouldian Finch, Erythrura
gouldiæ. This art is not only developed towards little birds, but also in
the field of the cattle, and even in Poultry. This art becomes from an ancient
animals’ love, it’s a naturalistic
culture owned by your people, and it’s very striking how many shows of
animals and overall of poultry, and related special Clubs, you are holding
during the year. Yes, the Germany recently had its biggest show in Nürnberg,
the last catalogue’s number being 70,566. But, Hans wrote to me that in
Zuidlaren this year are awaited 11,000 subjects, and if we compare the
inhabitants and the surface of the Netherlands with these of the Germany, I
think that the biggest show is yours. Obviously I have not checked these data,
and I let to you the pleasure to do. I think that I am not too far from the
truth.
The
love for the Poultry is wonderfully expressed by the excellent hand of Van
Gink, and only seldom the English Ludlow may be compared with him. The
sketches of Van Gink are a treatise of the variety, we don’t need to read
the text to understand what is already clearly expressed and synthesised in
the image. This is culture, a very deep culture. Deep culture expressed in an
excellent gift received from Mister Klaas Van der Hoek: the book Fryske
Hinnen.
Another
argument I am analysing in my future Fowl Genetics book, is that about the
small, right size, of the Dutch Bantams. I think that all of you are aware
that the sun’s light is very important for the chickens’ growth, and that
the different temperature your fowls have in respect of our Mediterranean
animals is compensated by the duration of the day during the good season. But,
the latitude of Northern Germany is even your latitude, and so the most
important reason of the right dimension of your Bantams is apparently in your
capacity and perseverance in selecting. The large fowls are large also in the
Netherlands as they are in Germany, and this fact demonstrates that it’s the
selection and not the light the main factor of the difference between the
Dutch and German Bantam subjects.
Your
people is very particular. From immemorial time the fowls have entered closely
into human life in a variety of ways. From the aesthetic standpoint, members
of various human races have busily occupied themselves in evolving plumage
coloration in bewildering variety, and have also produced changes in feather
structure and body type that demonstrate the relative plasticity of the
original stock of our feathered friends. I can call the Dutch people the
actual vanguard in studying, in searching, in creating and, overall, in
accepting all the novelties. For example, I personally know that in Germany
there exists a struggle between old and young breeders, but the law is
dictated by the aged people, who possess the experience, but is also
conservative, seeming that they are fearing the news. Sometime I think that it
happens as in our Catholic Church, where the Pope is contrary to the priests’
marriage, and almost all the priests are favourable. The future is of that
people who was able to choose the best, even the news. And your Navigators are
teachers in this field. And your flexibility is underlined by another thing.
Few
years ago, I don’t remember when, I read in an our newspaper that the Dutch
was ready to change their language by the English language. I remember that I
thought: look, this people is able to renounce to his language, not because
the Dutch don’t love the language of their ancestors, but because they are
very practical, they are Pragmatists.
You
have a big teacher in Genetics, i.e. Dr Gankema, and often I referred myself
to his book to find the true way in the complex field of the genetic
composition of the various plumage colours and patterns. And I think that Dr
Gankema is giving to you, transformed by the science, what you have prepared
to him with your breeding passion.
I
can add something to my meditations in saying that another very important
thing I found in the Netherlands it’s the spontaneous kindness everywhere.
This is a treasure which is not written in your standard, but which is the
basis of anything.
I
would like finish this conversation quoting part of the Bill Plant letter I
received from Australia 24th September 1994:
Your
trip to the Netherlands sounds interesting. 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. 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 (USA) 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.
At
this point, where are my considerations on Dutch Breeds requested by Hans?
Very few words, but I think that the quality of the Breeds are hatching
only from the quality of their Breeders. And the Dutch people is a people
owning an excellent quality.