156 HABITS OF BIRDS. 



ing up ^>rood of chickens like a hen, clucking of 

 them, fding them, and brooding them under his 

 wings, Tfith as much care and tenderness as their 

 dams are wont to do."* This leads us to the very 

 curious subject of training capons to perform the 

 office of a mother, which was practised as early as 

 the sixteenth century. 



In order to train a capon for this purpose, we are 

 instructed by Baptista Porta, in his curious book on 

 Natural Magic, to make him so tame that he will 

 take food out of the hand, then about eventide to 

 pluck the feathers off his breast, to irritate the bare 

 skin by rubbing it with nettles, and then to put the 

 chickens to him. They will naturally huddle under 

 him, and, by rubbing with their heads, allay the itch- 

 ing caused by the nettles ; and, upon repeating this 

 for two or three nights, he will gradually take an 

 affection for the chickens, and attend to them like a 

 mother. The author thinks it may probably be on 

 the principle of mutual distress producing mutual 

 sympathy, that the querulous chirp of the chickens 

 may make him, whil'e in pain himself, desirous of 

 allaying their misery. A capon once accustomed to 

 this office, will not abandon it, but, when one brood 

 is grown up, another of newly-hatched chickens 

 may be put to him, and he will be as kind to them, 

 and take as much care of them, as of the first, and 

 so in succession. 



The feeling of tenderness for the young broods 

 of other birds, in whatever way it may be supposed 

 to originate, has been exemplified in several very- 

 striking instances, both among birds and other ani- 

 mals. " In the month of May," says M. de Buffon, 

 " a young henbird was brought to me which was 

 not able to feed without assistance. I caused her 

 to be educated ; and she was hardly fledged when 

 I received from another place a nest of three or 



* Ray's Willoughby, p. 166. 



