In response to Rich Holloway's comments about the origin of chickens, I wrote,
"The domesticated chicken is an artificially selected group of varieties --
man-made 'species' -- all descendents of the guinea fowl of south-east Asia,
most specifically the Red Guinea Fowl of the Phillipines."

Proving the old adage that you should not post from memory, I consistenly
miswrote "Red Guinea Fowl" in the posting rather than "Red Jungle Fowl." If
you're into poultry science, such a fundamental mistake is completely
unpalatable and will leave more than a bad taste in your mouth, it's an error
that will stick in your craw until corrected. Guinea-fowl do exist, but they
are a geographically separate (but similar) family of birds from that of  the
pheasants (the family in which Jungle Fowl and barnyard chickens exist),
although both families are classified as Galliformes (chicken-like). Other
than this glaring error, everything else in the previous post is correct.
Nonetheless, I would greatly appreciate it if you would put your minds on
autoerase/rewind and substitute the phrase "jungle fowl" everywhere I wrote
"guinea fowl."

I could not find a good picture of the Red Jungle Fowl on the web -- although
there are quite good reproductions of classical nineteenth century, English
paintings of the Green and Gray Jungle Fowl at:

     http://www.ansi.okstate.edu/poultry/chickens/jungle/gray.htm
     http://www.ansi.okstate.edu/poultry/chickens/jungle/green.htm

If you only see chickens at the check-out counter, it's clear, as evident from
the pictures, that it doesn't take much imagination to see these animals as
the progenitor wild type of the common domesticated varieties.

Other spicy tidbits I came across while verifying the information in my
earlier post:

     o  The Red Jungle Fowl/Chicken is now estimated to have been completely
domesticated by the Chinese no later than 3300 years ago.

     o  These animals were prized -- and thus domesticated -- not as a food
item but for the fighting ability of the males. As such, they were
sporadically the objects of religious adoration from India to China.

     o  The domesticated chicken was introduced into Europe 2600 years ago by
the Romans.

     o  Three hundred years ago, only five or six distinct varieties of
chicken existed in Europe, the same number that the Romans introduced. Now,
following the varietal explosion of the last century, approximately 70
varieties are recognized -- and that count is continuing to increase.

Wirt Atmar