310 THE ROOK. 



put out of the way, for when hens turn cocks people say that they 

 are known to be very unlucky ; and if this thing is allowed to live, 

 we don't know what may happen. It has great spurs on its legs, 

 and last summer it laid four eggs. If I had had my own way, it would 

 have been killed when it first began to crow." I received the hen 

 with abundant thanks; and, in return, I sent the old woman a full-bred 

 Malay fowl. On examining the hen, I found her comb very large ; the 

 feathers on the neck and rump much elongated ; the spurs curved, and 

 about an inch and a quarter long ; the two largest feathers in her tail 

 arched, and four or five smaller arched ones, of a beautiful and glossy 

 colour, hanging down on each side of the tail. In a word, this hen 

 had so masculine an appearance, that, when strangers looked at her, 

 they all took her to be a cock, and it was with difficulty I persuaded 

 them that she was a hen. We allowed her the range of a sheltered 

 grass-plot, flanked on one side by holly trees, and open to the lake 

 on the other. Here, also, was placed, in a cage, the young rook 

 which I had taken from the nest of the carrion crow. The hen 

 showed such an antipathy to it, that, whenever I held it to her, she 

 would immediately fly at it. When visitors came to inspect her, I 

 had only to take the rook out of the cage, and pit it against her, 

 when she would stand upright, raise the long feathers on her neck, 

 and begin to cackle, cluck, and crow. One morning the rook had 

 managed to push aside a bar in front of its cage. A servant, in pass- 

 ing by, looked into it, and missed the bird. The hen had also dis- 

 appeared. On search being made, they were both found floating side 

 by side, dead, in the lake below. We conjectured that the hen had 

 pursued the rook after its escape from the cage, and that the wind, 

 which blew very strong that morning, had forced them both into a 

 watery grave. I had still one rook left at the gamekeeper's. It was 

 kept in a cage, which was placed on a little stand in his garden ; and 

 I had given orders that upon no account was it to be allowed to go 

 at large. The feathers remained firm at the base of the bill till the 

 1 5th of August, on which day the keeper perceived that a few feathers 

 had dropped from the lower mandible, and were lying at the bottom 

 of the cage. In a couple of weeks more, the lower mandible had 

 begun to put on a white scurvy appearance, while here and there a 

 few feathers had fallen from the upper one. This is the purport of 



