THE MISSISSIPPI RESERVES 279 



them until the young were nearly as large as 

 they were; in one case the brood consisted of 

 guinea-fowl. Moreover, they welcomed any 

 brood, no matter how large. One big rooster 

 was leading around so many chickens — all, 

 by what seemed a sardonic jest, his own prog- 

 eny, the progeny of the days when he was a 

 mere unregenerate father — that when they 

 took sheher under him he had to spread his 

 wings; "like a buzzard," said my host, to whom 

 soaring buzzards were familiar sights. Of course, 

 the extraordinary part of all this was not the 

 loss of the male quahties but the immediate 

 and complete acquirement of those of the 

 female. It was as if steers invariably took to 

 mothering calves, or geldings to adopting foals. 

 These capon-mothers, with their weight and 

 long spurs, fought formidably for their chicks. 

 In one case a Cooper's hawk swooped on a 

 half-grown chick, whereupon the game-cock 

 who was officiating as hen flew at the aggressor, 

 striking it so hard as to injure the top of the 

 wing. The hawk was unable to fly, and the 

 cock pressed it too close to let it escape. Al- 

 though the rooster could not kill the hawk, for 

 the latter threw itself on its back with ex- 

 tended talons, he had rendered it unable to 

 escape, and one of the men about the place 



