628 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



above, and tlie turkey cried for quarter at once. The lesson of 

 the easy victory was not lost, and thenceforth the young cock 

 fought turkeys with evident relish, always managing to reach 

 their backs, and so routing them with ease and celerity. Our best 

 Tooster, however, was too strong and heavy to suit him, and en- 

 counters with this hard fighter were very unwelcome. While one 

 of us fed the visitor, the other would catch the home champion, 

 and by taking him around to the farther side of the barn let him 

 enter the barn-yard on the trespasser's line of retreat. Of course, 

 there would be a fight, and it was difiicult for the jaunty intruder 

 to make his escape in good order without many severe knocks. 

 After a time he always kept a sharp watch on the dangerous cor- 

 ner of the barn-yard, and at any suspicious noise in that quarter 

 he started for home in great excitement. At last he almost en- 

 tirely ceased to visit us. In the cellar of a house in Buffalo, 

 where a number of chickens and two or three turkeys which had 

 been brought up from a farm on Grand Island were kept until 

 wanted for the table, I once saw a young black Spanish cock 

 fight and win a bloody battle with a very large gobbler. The 

 turkey tried to escape his vindictive conqueror by taking refuge 

 upon a board partition at least four feet high, between two 

 empty coal-bins. There he stood and stretched his long neck 

 out as far as possible. The victor flew up beside him and tried in 

 vain to reach his head. Then he wasted a few savage pecks upon 

 the gobbler's heavy wing, and gave that up in disgust. At last he 

 appeared to study out a plan, and deliberately flew straight for the 

 turkey's head, seized it with his beak, and hung on as long as pos- 

 sible. Then, dropping to the ground, he contentedly mounted 

 again to the side of his terrified victim and repeated the punish- 

 ment. This he did the third time, with perfect system, and 

 would have gone on indefinitely had I not interfered to save the 

 wretched bird. An Indian could not have taken more delight 

 in torturing a vanquished foe. The most remarkable exhibition 

 of cunning in cock-fights, however, that came under my observa- 

 tion, was witnessed in the barn-yard of a farm adjoining our 

 Orleans County headquarters. There were three old roosters on 

 the place, and they had divided up the territory instead of hold- 

 ing each one a certain rank in all of it. The cow-stable and a 

 corner of the barn-yard adjacent belonged to a big clumsy par- 

 tridge Cochin, the horse-stable and the grain-barn to a cock more 

 black Spanish than anything else, and the end of the barn-yard 

 farthest from the stables, with the house door-yard, to a white 

 Leghorn. There were neutral zones, as the diplomats say, between 

 every two divisions, and these were the scene of some sharp fight- 

 ing and a great deal of crowing and hostile manoeuvring. One 

 day the Cochin and the white Leghorn met in the barn-yard, and 



