In India it must have been domesticated when the Institutes of Manu were written, that is, according to Sir W. Jones, 1200 B.C., but, according to the later authority of Mr. H. Wilson, only 800 B.C., for the domestic fowl is forbidden, whilst the wild is permitted to be eaten. If, as before remarked, we may trust the old Chinese Encyclopaedia, the fowl must have been domesticated several centuries earlier, as it is said to have been introduced from the West into China 1400 B.C. Sufficient materials do not exist for tracing the history of the separate breeds. About the commencement of the Christian era, Columella mentions a five-toed fighting breed, and some provincial breeds; but we know nothing about them. He also alludes to dwarf fowls; but these cannot have been the same with our Bantams, which, as Mr. Crawfurd has shown, were imported from Japan into Bantam in Java. A dwarf fowl, probably the true Bantam, is referred to in an old Japanese Encyclopaedia, as I am informed by Mr. Birch. In the Chinese Encyclopaedia published in 1596, but compiled from various sources, some of high antiquity, seven breeds are mentioned, including what we should now call Jumpers or Creepers, and likewise fowls with black feathers, bones, and flesh. In 1600 Aldrovandi describes seven or eight breeds of fowls, and this is the most ancient record from which the age of our European breeds can be inferred. The Gallus turcicus certainly seems to be a pencilled Hamburgh; but Mr. Brent, a most capable judge, thinks that Aldrovandi "evidently figured what he happened to see, and not the best of the breed." Mr. Brent, indeed, considers all Aldrovandi's fowls as of impure breed; but it is a far more probable view that all our breeds have been much improved and modified since his time; for, as he went to the expense of so many figures, he probably would have secured characteristic specimens. The Silk fowl, however, probably then existed in its present state, as did almost certainly the fowl with frizzled or reversed feathers. Mr. Dixon (7/34. 'Ornamental and Domestic Poultry' 1847 page 185; for passages translated from Columella see page 312. For Golden Hamburghs see Albin 'Natural History of Birds' 3 volumes with plates 1731-38.) considers Aldrovandi's Paduan fowl as "a variety of the Polish," whereas Mr. Brent believes it to have been more nearly allied to the Malay. The anatomical peculiarities of the skull of the Polish breed were noticed by P. Borelli in 1656. I may add that in 1737 one Polish sub- breed, viz., the Golden-spangled, was known; but judging from Albin's description, the comb was then larger, the crest of feathers much smaller, the breast more coarsely spotted, and the stomach and thighs much blacker: a Golden-spangled Polish fowl in this condition would now be of no value. DIFFERENCES IN EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL STRUCTURE BETWEEN THE BREEDS: INDIVIDUAL VARIABILITY.