LXXXV.] 



OF SELBORNE. 



approach, her note becomes earnest and alarming, and her out- 

 cries are redoubled. 



No inhabitants of the yard seem possessed of such a variety 

 of expression and so copious a language as common poultry. 

 Take a chicken of four or five days old, and hold it up to a 

 window where there are flies, and it will immediately seize its 

 prey, with little twitterings of complacency ; but if you tender 

 it a wasp or a bee, at once its note becomes harsh, and expres- 

 sive of disapprobation and a sense of danger. When a pullet 

 is ready to lay she intimates the event by a joyous soft and easy 

 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 mistresses immediately adopt. 

 The tumult is not confined to the family concerned, but catches 

 from yard to yard, and spreads to every homestead within heav- 

 ing, till at last the whole village is in an uproar. As soon as a 

 hen becomes a mother her new relation demands a new language ; 

 she then 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 concubine 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 amorous phrases and his terms of detium 6. 

 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 



VOL. I. H H 



