OF SELBORNE. 269 
with little twitterings of complacency; but if you 
tender it a wasp or a bee, at once its note becomes 
harsh and expressive of disapprobation and a sense 
of danger. When a pullet is ready to lay, she in- 
timates the event by a joyous and easy soft note. 
Of all the occurrences of their life, that of laying 
seems to be the most important: for no sooner has 
a hen disburdened herself, than she rushes forth 
with a clamorous kind of joy, which the cock and 
the rest of his hens immediately adopt. The tu- 
mult is not confined to the family concerned, but 
catches from yard to yard, and spreads to every 
homestead within hearing, till at last the whole vil- 
lage is in an uproar. Assoonasa hen becomes a 
mother, her new relation demands a new language : 
she runs clucking and screaming about, and seems 
agitated as if possessed. The father of the flock 
has also a considerable vocabulary; if he finds 
food, he calls a favourite to partake ; and if a bird 
of prey passes over, with a warning voice he bids 
his family beware. The gallant chanticleer has at 
command his affectionate phrases and his terms of 
defiance. But the sound by which he is best known 
is his crowing : by this he has been distinguished in 
all ages as the countryman’s clock or ’larum, as the 
watchman that proclaims the divisions of the night. 
Thus the poet elegantly styles him 
‘“ The crested cock, whose clarion sounds 
The silent hours.” 
A neighbouring gentleman one summer had lost 
most of his chickens by a sparrow-hawk, that came 
gliding down between a fagot-pile and the end of 
his house to the place where the coops stood. The 
