From the extremely close resemblance in colour, general structure, and especially in voice, between _Gallus bankiva_ and the Game fowl; from their fertility, as far as this has been ascertained, when crossed; from the possibility of the wild species being tamed, and from its varying in the wild state, we may confidently look at it as the parent of the most typical of all the {237} domestic breeds, namely, the Game-fowl. It is a significant fact, that almost all the naturalists in India, namely, Sir W. Elliot, Mr. S. N. Ward, Mr. Layard, Mr. J. C. Jerdon, and Mr. Blyth,[385] who are familiar with _G. bankiva_, believe that it is the parent of most or all our domestic breeds. But even if it be admitted that _G. bankiva_ is the parent of the Game breed, yet it may be urged that other wild species have been the parents of the other domestic breeds; and that these species still exist, though unknown, in some country, or have become extinct. The extinction, however, of several species of fowls, is an improbable hypothesis, seeing that the four known species have not become extinct in the most anciently and thickly peopled regions of the East. There is, in fact, only one kind of domesticated bird, namely, the Chinese goose or _Anser cygnoides_, of which the wild parent-form is said to be still unknown, or extinct. For the discovery of new, or the rediscovery of old species of Gallus, we must not look, as fanciers often look, to the whole world. The larger gallinaceous birds, as Mr. Blyth has remarked,[386] generally have a restricted range: we see this well illustrated in India, where the genus Gallus inhabits the base of the Himalaya, and is succeeded higher up by Gallophasis, and still higher up by Phasianus. Australia, with its islands, is out of the question as the home for unknown species of the genus. It is, also, as improbable that Gallus should inhabit South America[387] as that a humming-bird should be found in the Old World. From the character of the other gallinaceous {238} birds of Africa, it is not probable that Gallus is an African genus. We need not look to the western parts of Asia, for Messrs. Blyth and Crawfurd, who have attended to this subject, doubt whether Gallus ever existed in a wild state even as far west as Persia. Although the earliest Greek writers speak of the fowl as a Persian bird, this probably merely indicates its line of importation. For the discovery of unknown species we must look to India, to the Indo-Chinese countries, and to the northern parts of the Malay Archipelago. The southern portion of China is the most likely country; but as Mr. Blyth informs me, skins have been exported from China during a long period, and living birds are largely kept there in aviaries, so that any native species of Gallus would probably have become known. Mr. Birch, of the British Museum, has translated for me passages from a Chinese Encyclopædia published in 1609,