All the galliform birds are specially agreeable to man as food, and the domesticated race of the jungle-fowl--for which we have no proper English name, except that of "the" fowl[1]--is second only to the dog in its close association with man. It seems to have been domesticated first in Burma, and was introduced into China about 1000 B.C., and through Greece into Europe about 600 B.C. It is not mentioned in the Hebrew Scriptures, nor by Homer, nor figured on ancient Egyptian monuments. It was called "the Persian bird" by the Greeks, indicating that it came to them from the Far East through Persia. The common or barn-door fowl is assigned to the genus Gallus, of which there are four wild species. It is very closely related to the pheasants (genus Phasianus, with several "local" species); indeed, so closely that, when pheasants and "fowls" are kept together in confinement they will sometimes interbreed and produce vigorous hybrids. The peacocks are Indian, and with them is associated the Malay Argus-pheasant. They share with the turkeys, which are North American in origin, the habit of "display" by the male birds when "courting"--a habit which we see in a less marked form in the strutting, wing-scraping, and cries of the pheasants, chanticleers, and grouse-birds. The various species of partridges are confined to the temperate regions of the Old World, but the word is wrongly applied in America and Australia to other kinds of birds. The guinea-fowls are African, and so are the francolins and quails, the latter migrating to the South of Europe. It is an interesting fact that, when the turkey was first brought from America, about 1550, a confusion grew up in Europe between it and the guinea-fowl. The turkey was given a genus (Meleagris) to itself by Linnæus, who called it "M. gallopavo," whilst the guinea-fowl was called "Numida meleagris." We know, at present, other "species" of Meleagris besides M. gallopavo, and other species of Numida. [1] "Chanticleer" is the name given to the cock-bird of this species in the very ancient story of "Renard the Fox."