POULTRY. A term designating collec tively all birds which have been domesticated for their flesh, eggs or feathers, for fighting or for pets, including fowls, ducks, geese, swans, turkeys, guineas, peacocks and pigeons. The word "fowl" once included wild game birds but now applies only to the domesticated fowl dontesticus) and does not properly in clude turkeys, guineas or pheasants which be long to a similar genus (Phasianus) which are now kept in semi-captivity and are only par tially domesticated.
Origin.— The common fowl which makes up the largest class of domestic poultry is sup posed to have originated in southwestern Asia. Darwin believed all domestic fowl to have sprung from a single species, the wild jungle fowl (gallus bankiva) which still is found in the jungles of India in the wild state. His belief was founded upon the fact that gallus bankma closely resembled the common Black Breasted Red Game of to-day, one of the oldest varie ties of domestic fowl known; that crosses readily with the common hen, fertile offspring; that it resembles the domestic fowl in voice and action; that it is readily domes ticated and that according to his observations it produced sterile offspring when crossed with other species of wild fowl and that sterile off spring resulted when other wild species were crossed with domestic fowl. On the latter two points it is believed that Darwin was in error and that many varieties of common fowl have descended from several wild species and their crosses. In support of the belief it is known that several domestic varieties bear a much closer resemblance to other wild species than do gallus bankiva. The Oriental games, for ex ample, resemble gallus giganteus much more closely than they do gallus bankiva; indeed, the gallus giganteus kept in domestication by the natives of the Malay Peninsula at the present time are so like the Malay breed of our do mestic fowl that they might be considered the same. Among the wild fowl now in existence which may have contributed largely or in slight degree to the foundation of the common fowl are gallus bankiva or (gallus ferrugineus) from southern India only ; gallus sonneratii, found in Hindustan; gallus fercatus from Java ; gallus stanleyi from Ceylon; gallus giganteus, the Kuhn fowl of the Malay peninsula, and others not so well known.
The principal characteristics of the domestic fowl are as follows: Beak, heavy; gullet en larged to form a crop; small stomach; gizzard strong to crush hard seed; two long smca; body temperature 105 to 106, varying slightly accord ing to temperature of the environment; feet adapted to scratching, running and perching; wings not suited to long flight; gregarious; polygamous; domestic in the extreme; prolific; period of incubation 21 days; young covered with down and able to run about as soon as hatched; brave in defense; flesh. and eggs prized as human food.
History.— Fowls are the oldest of our do mesticated animals so far as history records. The earliest record is to be found in a Chinese encyclopedia compiled from ancient documents, where it says ((fowls are creatures of the west? Fowls were introduced into China 1,400 years B.C. and the Chinese considered the Indian region as their source. They were also men tioned by Aristophanes between 400 and 500 and it is said are figured on Babylonian cylinders between the 6th and 7th centuries a.c. Mention of fowls is also made in the writings of the Greek and Roman authors Theognis, Aristotle, Diodorus, .7Eschylus, Plutarch, Plato and Pliny, and are supposed to have been taken into the British Isles by the Romans, who regarded them as sacred to Mars. The cock has in all ages occupied an exalted position as an emblem, symbolizing courage among the ancient Gauls and afterward among the French, who used it on their ensign after the Revolution. It figures also in the Bible and has been used in Christian art to symbolize the Resurrection. At the present day it is regarded by political parties as a herald of victory.