236 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE 



high before you can appreciate his merit. I do 

 not recommend any one to keep a caged cock in 

 his study for the sake of its music, crow it never 

 so well. 



To return to the ten cockerels; they did not 

 crow very much, and at first I paid little attention 

 to them. After a few days I remarked that one 

 individual among them was rapidly acquiring the 

 clear vigorous strain of the adult bird. Com- 

 pared with that fine note which I have described, 

 it was still weak and shaky, but in shape it was 

 similar, and the change had come while its 

 brethren were still uttering brief and harsh 

 screeches as at the beginning. Probably, where 

 there is a great mixture of varieties, it is the same 

 with the fowl as with man in the diversity of the 

 young, different ancestral characters appearing in 

 different members of the same family. This 

 cockerel was apparently the musical member, and 

 promised in a short time to rival his neighbour. 

 Having heard that it was intended to keep one 

 of the cockerels to be the parent of future broods, 

 I began to wonder whether the prize in the lottery 

 — to wit, life and a modest harem — would fall 

 to this fine singer or not. The odds were that 



