THE TOSA FOWL.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20005, 24 January 1927, Page 14

THE TOSA FOWL.

CENTURIES TO GROW A TAIL. Bird freaks are of two sorts—natural and manipulated. On the one hand, centuries may have been required to develop what amounts to a new feathered species; on the other hand. Nature herself performs queer transformations, apparentl) as a whim, states tho New York TimesOn the island of Shikoku, off the coast of Japan, experiments begun hundreds of years ago are still being performed upon the phffinix or long-tailed Tosa fowl, whose plumes, through process of scientific evolution, have been made to grow to a lengtn of 18ft or 19ft., Burdened with this cul-ture-induced beauty, the bird, a recent writer explained, is “almost incapable 0; free movement.” In order that the tail, rivalling that of a peacock, may be protected from all harm, the Phoenix must be housed in a cage too small to permit the bird’s turning around. The tail coverts trail off outside the cage, where they can be carefully tended. A freak” much less pretentious and that owes no debt at all to science is the ‘white blackbird,” an English clergyman reports having watched through his field glasses last summer. This was. he says, “a blackbird with a sompletely white head. It used to feed in my garden in the morning and twilight with great regularity.”