February
24, 1996.
Dear
Mr Plant,
Many,
many apologies for not replying immediately to your generous package with very
valuable gift books of November 11th and kind letter of February 8th. They
reached me safely but some events of my life got in the way to do it. This
connects with both the whole situation within Ukraine and Russia, and in my
personal fate.
In
January I was in holiday without pay in Nizhny Novgorod where my parents live
and whence I came back to Borky on January 31. I was able to watch
deterioration of life conditions in Russia because of complicated economic and
political situation, because of military operations in Chechnya and Daghestan.
But I dare say that current economic and political situation in Ukraine is
much worse. As well as in Russia, people at enterprises and institutions
receive their salaries with delay several months later. Bank accounts are
empty. Many enterprises and institutions owe the state great amounts of money
and close down or send their employees to permanent holiday without pay. I
read an official forecast of West-European experts for 1996 that Ukraine will
be affected this year by the most severe falling-off of production and
inflation in comparison with other countries of the former USSR. We have no
future. We do not know what to wait for from both Russian and Ukrainian
leaders. We are afraid of possible beginning of second Chechnya in any other
region including the disputable Crimea. And all this is also attributed to our
Institute in Borky and myself. During three last months there is a bad
practice in Borky to disconnect electric power for one or more hours two or
three times every day for the purpose of economy drive. As to my salary, in
January I received for December only 6,000,000 karbovanets (or 30 USD) but
paid them as debts to my friends. As for level of prices, for example, 1 kg of
butter costs 1,000,000 karbovanets (5 USD), a dozen of eggs 300,000
karbovanets (1.5 USD) and so on.
So
you see how the life is treating me and what a hopeless position I am
experiencing at the moment. I do not see any way out. I do not know how I
shall continue my work here and earn my living. I do not even have money for
postal expenses to write to my friends all over the world, co-operate with
them, make xerocopies for them and so on.
Only
few buoyant feelings are visiting me and consoling my soul now. Of course,
these are love and sympathy of my parents and son who lives apart me with my
former wife. Let me express many, many thanks to you for all your assistance
and sympathy for me. I am most glad to have such good friends and to know such
outstanding persons as you and Dr Elio Corti are. I never forget all your best
you and Dr Corti are doing for me. And I hope we will meet each other in May
in Italy because Dr Corti invited me, too.
Underneath
you can read some of my comments to your interesting books.
Page
21 of your Supplement to Part 2 of The Origin Evolution..., 1985: Errata in
writing the genus name, Phasianus instead of Phasianaus, Phaninaus and
Phasinaus given in the text.
Page
22 and 23: You mentioned the Early Cretaceous including Ambioriiformes
Kurochkin, 1982 and the avian evolution chain. To this I can add that Dr
Kurochkin lives and works in Moscow. In the proceedings of the XXI
International Ornithological Congress, Vienna, August 20-25, 1994, I have
found some interesting articles including Kurochkin’s one:
Larry
D. Martin (Natural History Museum and Dept. of Systematics and Ecology, Univ.
Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas 66045, USA) - A New Skeletal Model of Archaeopteryx
Walter
J. Bock (Dept. of Biological Sciences, Columbia Univ., New York, NY 10027,
USA) & Paul Buhler (Brandhof 15, D-74417 Gschwend, Germany) - Evolution of
Feathers and Flight in Birds
Sankar
Chatterjee (Museum of Texas Tech Univ., MS/Box 43191, Lubbock, Texas
79409-3191, USA) - Protoavis from the Triassic of Texas: The Oldest Bird
Andrzej
Elzanowski (M-P-I. f. Biochemie, D-82152 Martinsried, Germany) & Peter
Wellnhofer (Bayerische Staatssammlung. f. Palaeont. und hist. Geologie,
D-80333 Munchen, Germany) - Cranial Morphology of Archaeopteryx: Evidence from
the Seventh Skeleton
Evgeny
N. Kurochkin (Palaeontological Institute, Profsoyuznaya St. 123, Moscow
117647, Russia) - Synopsis and Evolution of Mesozoic Birds
Erich
Weber (Spezielle Zoologie, Eberhard-Karls-Universitat, Auf der Morgenstelle
28, D-7400 Tubingen, Germany) & Angelika Hesse (Museum fur Naturkunde und
Vorgeschichte, Askanische Str. 32, D-4500 Dessau, Germany) - The Systematic
Position of Aptornis, a Flightless Subfossil Bird from New Zealand
Zhou
Zhonge (Institute of Vertebrate Palaeontology and Palaeoanthropology, Academia
Sinica, China) - The Relationship of Archaeopteryx to Early Cretaceous Birds
in China
I
will try to copy these articles for you when I can. Maybe, you would like to
write to some of these scholars.
Part
3 of The Origin Evolution..., 1986, pages 40, 41 and 45:
Hutt
and you assume that Gallus sonnerati could be involved in the origin of the
domestic fowl, G. domesticus, on the base of a fact of gene S (silver)
presence in the both genotypes. However my suggestion is that gene S might
appear in G. domesticus as a homological mutation since there is a known
biologic law of homological variation discovered by the famous Russian
geneticist V.I. Vavilov (1920) that variation including mutations in the close
biologic species is similar.
Page
55: There is nothing of surprise that in the crossing between Black Pekin
(Cochin) and Light Sussex about 12% of the offspring resulting from the F2
resembled Light Brahma both in shape and colour - this corresponds to the
Mendelian law of heredity. As to “missing” peacomb of the Brahma it cannot
emerge in any way because both initial parent breeds, Pekin and Sussex, have
the single comb genotype, r+/r+ p+/p+.
Page
63: Perhaps you read in Tegetmeir’s “The Poultry Book” (1873) that about
1845 large fowls were imported to Europe from China that were called
Cochin China and Brahma but these names were, to Tegetmeir's mind, less
correct than the other one, Shanghai.
Page
74: Re diversity of chicken breeds as a result of involving several wild
varieties, I can again remind the Vavilov’s homological variation law. On
the other hand, we know about much more pronounced diversity of pigeon breeds
having the very fanciful exterior characters that are absent in the wild
ancestor, Columba livia, including leg feathering, frizzling (as in chickens!)
and so on. And these characters were the result of artificial selection of
mutations!
Page
79: In the case of blue egg sell colour we can face the same homological
variation as the similar colourations were also intrinsic in pheasants. I
refer to an article of Martin Silverudd, Deep Lake Gene Bank, S-570 82 Malilla,
Sweden in the Proceedings of the 17th World’s Poultry Congress, Helsinki,
1984, pages 711-712:
The
existence of hens laying blue eggs was first brought to the general notice of
the poultry world by Prof. Salvador Castellò Carreras during meeting of the
First World’s Poultry Congress at The Hague in 1921 (1). None of the wild
species of GALLUS lays an egg which can be supposed to contain the gene for
blue egg shell (O). It is well known that hybrids can be readily obtained
between the pheasant and the domestic fowl, but hitherto such hybrids have
proved to be sterile (1). It cannot, however, be said that the matter has been
fully explored, and it is conceivable that at some time or other fertile
offspring may have been produced (1).
Punnett
(1) noted that polychromatism in the fowls’ and pheasants’ eggs follows
apparently similar lines (white and blue, light brown and green, dark brown
and olive, respectively). The green or olive egg shell colour depends on the
interaction between O and for brown egg shell.
In
Sweden we have had birds laying green eggs since 1956.
O
is dominant. That means, for instance, that in a cross involving three strains
(one male strain, and two female strains), we may introduce O to the male
strain only, for getting a hybrid laying green eggs. Birds carrying O give egg
shells coloured all through, different from the brown egg shell, that have the
pigment confined to the outer surface of the shell. Green and olive eggs have
a blue inner side of the shell. O gives an equable colouring effect, opposite
to some genes for brown eggs, which give spotted shell and other variations.
Variations in the green colour (such as brown spotted etc.) depends on genes
for brown.
The
original hens of Costa Rica lay an egg of an absolutely brilliant green colour
(1).
(Reference:
1. Punnett, R.C., 1933. Genetic studies in poultry. IX. The blue egg. Journal
of Genetics, Vol. XXVII, No. 3: 465-470.)
Page
84: As it follows from Hutt (1949), the genes for silver (S), extended black
plumage (E) and yellow shank colour (Id) were taken from other wild jungle
fowl species but again what’s about the homological variation in the close
Gallus species? And what is more, on page 85 there is still a Hutt’s notice
about considerable role of mutations!
Pages
86 and 90: The Tegetmeir’s statements concerning great diversity of animals
and their increased variation under domestication as well as the role of
artificial selection are worth to attract attention with regard to the problem
of origin and evolution of the domestic fowl.
Please
forgive me for some criticisms regarding polyphyletic theory but it seems to
me that we should take them into consideration when discussing this problem.
Please
do not hesitate to contact me if you require any information or assistance.
Anticipating
the meeting with you in Italy.
Kind
regards and best wishes for the New Year.
Yours
very faithfully,