Home Nature-Study Course. 397 



25. Why can the hen fly better than the chick? 



26. Can the hen fly hke the robin or the crow? 



27. How far can a hen fly? Why can she not fly farther? Why does she need 

 to fly at all? Compare the size of the hen's wings with her body, and the size of 

 the robin's wings with its body, to answer this question. 



28. Has the young chick any tail? WiU it ever have any? Why does the 

 young chick not need a tail? What use is the tail to a grown fowl? , 



29. Where does the chick sleep at night? Where will it sleep when it is grown 

 up? 



30. Where will it put its head while sleeping after it is grown up? Why doea 

 it not do that now? 



31. Did you ever see a partridge? Compare the partridge with a domestic 

 fowl in order to understand how the latter might live in a wild state. 



32. How does the young partridge escape when enemies are around? Where 

 does the partridge stay in the winter? On what does it live? Where do our 

 hens stay in the winter? If the partridge does not need to go south in winter, 

 why not? If it did need to go south, how would it get there? 



33. Does the chick try to preen its feathers? If so, how? 



34. What noises does the chick make? Does it open its beak when it peeps? 

 How many emotions does the chicken express through its voice? 



35. A lesson in bird language: 



The fowls are among the most accompUshed Unguists of the bird 

 world, even though they have little fame as musicians. However, 

 I have always held that the song of the hen when she strolls about 

 on a bit of bare ground during a sunny day of early spring is as happy 

 a sound as can be found anywhere in nature. The study of the 

 language of the chicken yard is good training to the ear and leads to 

 an understanding of bird talk. The hen and the rooster express 

 by voice at least ten different mental conditions or emotions with 

 perfect distinctness. What are these and how are they expressed? 



STUDY OF A DUCKLING. 



Last summer I had the interesting experience of caring for a time 

 for some incubator-hatched ducklings; and for those who assert 

 that the mother bird teaches the 3^oung nothing, I would advise 

 the study of incubator orphans. In early years I had cared for 

 ducklings which were brought up by a hen, an obviously well 

 meaning but ill adapted step-mother. But even the ducklings 

 mothered by a hen were so far in advance in intelligence of the poor 

 institution ized creatures of the incubator, that I have begun to 

 have thoughts about a society for the prevention of incubators, 

 or for the establishment of asylums for idiot ducklings hatched in 

 them. 



The lesson on the duckling should follow that on the chick in school, 

 and should be conducted in a similar manner. 



