Beeton's book of poultry and domestic animals - Thurman Lodge ...

DOMESTIC POTJLTBY.
oonBpirators made to suffer for their abortive attempt at wholesale
m.urder. The brave Britons, however, were not to be
entirely banlked of their revenge. They treasured np their
spite against their dunghill betrayers tUl the Danes were, in
their turn, beaten and made to flee ; and then they inaugurated
the institution ever after known as " cock-shying," and ever
after upheld manfully on the anniversary of the betrayal of the
conspiracy.
For the sake of ancient English valour and chivalry, I hope
that the legend has no sounder foundation than the imagination
of the old German writer Cranenstien.
As to the origin of the introduction of the domestic cock
into Britain, we are unable to fix the precise date. When
Julius Caesar invaded the country, he found both the goose and
fowl in a state of domestication ;
and they seem to have been
held in some kind of religious reverence, as they were forbidden
to be eaten. It is common all over the world ; and it is very
singular that the common fowl, in every way resembling that
of our own country, was found domesticated amongst the South
Sea Islanders when first Europeans visited them.
The Game Cock we seem to owe to the Romans, as there is
no instance on record of cock-fighting being practised by the
ancient Britons. It is very probable that while the Bomans
remained in the conquered country, certain of the game breed
were sent over for their amusement, and hence cock-fighting
became an institution of the country. Several choice breeds
were kept by the ancient Greeks, Medians, and Persians. The
anecdote of Themistocles, the Athenian king, who fiourished
two thousand years ago—already given—shows that they were
common amongst the Athenians. What he then remarked of
the two fighting-cocks in his camp may at the present time be
equally applicable to our own specimens of the species. To this
day its courage has not degenerated. The bird still preserves
his bold and elegant gait, and his sparkling eye, while his wedgeshaped
beak and cruel spurs are ever ready to support his
defiant crow. It is no wonder that the breed is not plentiful
— 6fit, on account of the few eggs laid by the hen; and
secondly, from the incurable pugnacity of the chicks. Halffledged
broods may be found blind as bats from fighting, and
only waiting for the least glimmer of sight to be at it again.
The fighting of cocks, however, survived the practice of
" shying " at them by many years. No barbarism, ancient or
modem, was ever more favourite or more imiversally patronized.
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