Medical zoology and mineralogy. Or, Illustrations and descriptions of the animals and minerals employed in medicine, and of the preparations derived from them; including also an account of animal and mineral poisons, with figures coloured from nature / [John Stephenson].

  • Stephenson, John, 1790-1864
Date:
1832
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical zoology and mineralogy. Or, Illustrations and descriptions of the animals and minerals employed in medicine, and of the preparations derived from them; including also an account of animal and mineral poisons, with figures coloured from nature / [John Stephenson]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    69/434 (page 41)
    Spec. Char. Comb toothed ; throat wattled beneath ; feathers of the neck elongated, spotted with white, black, and fulvous, with membranaceous tips ; throat, breast, abdomen, and back, griseous lineated with white; iving-coverts reddish-chesnut; the quill and tail feathers deep black. Phasianus Gallus; Syst.Nat. Gmelin, 737. Phasianus Gallus, var a.; Lath.Ind. Ornith. 625, 1. Wild Cock ; Lath. Gen. Syst. 2, 2, 625, 1. Phasianus Indicus ; Leach, Zool. Misc. ii. t. 61; Shaw, Zool. xi. t. 12. Coq Sauvage ; Sonnerat, Voy. Orient, ii. p. 153, t. 94-95. Gallus Sonncrati, Tem. This magnificent bird, commonly called the Jungle Cock, is a native of India, where it occurs in great abundance, in woods and forests. From this species it is that Sonnerat has asserted all our domestic fowls have originated ; but as this opinion is not supported by evidence, and as the points of difference are very distinct, many naturalists of the present day, and among others Dr. Leach, dissent entirely from the generally received opinion. M. Temminck unhe- sitatingly denies the possibility of such an origin, and considers them as derived from more than a single stock, and that difference in point of form and plumage is independent of climate or accident. It is from the Javan Cock, of Latham, (Gallus Bankivn, Tem.) principally, that this celebrated ornithologist thinks our common domestic fowl has been obtained. The Jungle Fowl of Sonnerat is somewhat smaller than our domestic cock ; it has the beak horn-coloured, the comb notched, and the wattles similar to ours, in colour of a lighter or deeper red, but tbe bare space about the eyes, and on the throat, is larger in this species ; the feathers on the head and neck become longer as they approach the body. They are remarkably distinguished from every other species of cock, in the size and flatness of the quills of these feathers, forming a white stripe throughout the whole length of the feather to the tip, where it becomes expanded into a round film of a cartilaginous structure, very delicate, and highly polished. The feathers of the back of the tail-coverts are long, narrow, of a brownish black, marked with lighter spots of the same colour, and F