It is only possible in the time available to treat the background to problems of production along the broadest possible lines. The subject is one well worth detailed attention, but it is questionable if sufficient knowledge is extant to fill in the wide gaps in the story of the evolution of our highly productive modern breeds from their ancestral types—the jungle fowl.

The history of domestication of the fowl covers a very extended period of time, and in it three main lines of development may be traced. The first of these is the use of the male fowl as a fighting cock. From the earliest times up to the present it has been used for this purpose and cock-fighting has been the incentive to selective breeding. In this case the skill of the breeder has been put to the severest of tests—the elimination in battle of those individuals lacking the necessary qualities to survive.