MENTAL TRAITS IN THE POULTRY-YARD. 631 



great fan of featliers. It was evidently done throngh a mistaken 

 notion of the object tested, but it hurt the victim's pride terribly 

 to have such liberty taken with his person. Down came his tail, 

 and he walked off in injured dignity, conscious that he had been 

 involved in something ridiculous. 



A disappointed barn-yard fowl is often as cross as if it could 

 show its temper after the manner of human beings. The big 

 dominique rooster that smashed the looking-glass was a very 

 good-natured fellow with hens and young chickens, and he seldom 

 resented having kernels of corn, no matter how many, snatched 

 out from under his beak, when it was done in a fair scramble. 

 But if he had begun to crow, and a kernel was unexpectedly 

 dropped where he certainly would have got it, had he not been so 

 busy, it was too much to see his share taken away by any other 

 fowl. He frequently pecked the offender as soon as he could stop 

 crowing, and showed general ill-temper for a few moments. His 

 indignation was so amusing, that we fell into the habit of teasing 

 him in this way, until, at last, the old fellow began to practice 

 choking down the rest of his crow when corn was thrown in 

 front of him. Gradually he managed to stop more and more 

 quickly, and in the end he would swallow his voice with a gulp, 

 and snatch a bit of food as promptly as if he had not been crowing 

 at all. 



A half-brother of this rooster learned very quickly to crow 

 for corn, once for every kernel. He used to stand before us 

 and crow as regularly as clock-work, always stopping for his 

 reward^ and never expecting a second kernel until he had crowed 

 again. When almost satisfied, he waited much longer between 

 times, and at last walked contentedly away. A black hen once 

 showed almost equal intelligence in learning, not how to get food 

 but how to be relieved of some which she could not help carrying 

 around on her feathers. In the barbarous eagerness of boys to 

 bring about fights, we often daubed old hens that held high rank 

 and had many discontented subjects, with mud or anything else 

 which would disguise them. On one occasion we dyed a speckled 

 cock red with carpet-dye, glued a stiff, high comb of paper on 

 his frost-amputated stump, and tied up his wattles under his 

 throat. This overdid the business to such an extent that the 

 other roosters fled from him in horror, as if he had been a hawk, 

 and the Devonshire farm-hand, looking at him in amazement, ex- 

 claimed, " Byes, what fresh bird have ye brought about here ? " 

 Mud failed on the black hen in question, and we tried common 

 paste, never thinking of one result — it turned the poor hen's feath- 

 ers back, like those of a frizzled fowl — and, after we had done our 

 best to wash the paste off, she was still in a sad plight. Many of 

 her inferiors whipped her badly, and at last she became broken in 



