[Illustration: Fig. 93.--Barnacle Geese.--Fac-simile of an Engraving on
Wood, from the "Cosmographie Universelle" of Munster, folio, Basle, 1552.]
There is every reason for believing that the domestication of the wild
duck is of quite recent date. The attempt having succeeded, it was wished
to follow it up by the naturalisation in the poultry-yard of two other
sorts of aquatic birds, namely, the sheldrake (_tadorna_) and the moorhen,
but without success. Some attribute the introduction of turkeys into
France and Europe to Jacques Coeur, treasurer to Charles VII., whose
commercial connections with the East were very extensive; others assert
that it is due to King Rene, Count of Provence; but according to the best
authorities these birds were first brought into France in the time of
Francis I. by Admiral Philippe de Chabot, and Bruyerin Champier asserts
that they were not known until even later. It was at about the same period
that guinea-fowls were brought from the coast of Africa by Portuguese
merchants; and the travelling naturalist, Pierre Belon, who wrote in the
year 1555, asserts that in his time "they had already so multiplied in the
houses of the nobles that they had become quite common."
|