125 



A FEW OF THE BIRD FAMILY. 



The old bob white, and chipbird; 



The flicker and chee-wink, 

 And little hopty-skip bird 



Along the river brink. 



The blackbird and snowbird, 



The chicken-hawk and crane ; 

 The glossy old black crow-bird, 



And buzzard, down the lane. 



The yellowbird and redbird, 



The tom-tit and the cat; 

 The thrush and that redhead bird 



The rest's all pickin' at ! 



The jay-bird and the bluebird, 



The sap-suck and the wren 

 The cockadoodle-doo bird, 



And our old settin' hen ! 



James Whitcomb Riley. 



THE DOMESTIC FOWL. 



The writers of antiquity used the term specifically it is applied to the domestic 



fowl to include all the members of the cock and hen, or, as they are more famil- 



bird tribe and, in some cases, the young iarly called, chickens (Callus domesticus). 



of other animals. Feathered creatures, The word chicken appropriately belongs 



no matter what their habits, were not to the common fowl when under one year 



called birds, neither were they separated of age, yet it is used to indicate those of 



into classes other than the "Fowls of the any breed and of any age between birth 



Air," "Fowls of the Sea," "Fowls of the and maturity. In this connection it is of 



Earth," and similar descriptive divisions, interest to note that in the English lan- 



In the seventeenth and the earlier part guage the common fowl has no distinctive 



of the eighteenth century, the word fowl name. The term hen, frequently used, 



was applied to any large feathered ani- should be applied only to the female of 



mal and the term bird to those of less this and other domestic fowls, 

 size. In early times the word bird was The progenitor of the common fowl is 



used in the sense of brood and included generally conceded to be the Red Jungle 



the young of all animals. In an early act . Fowl (Gallus ferrugineus or bankiva), 



of the Parliament of Scotland we find the though there are three other wild species, 



expression "Wolf-birdis," referring to all oriental. This species is a native of 



the very young wolf. India, a part of China, the adjacent isl- 



At the present time the term fowl in its ands and the Philippines. Its habits are 



wider sense is generally used to include diversified, for we. are told it may "be 



all the forms of farm poultry, both when found in lofty forests and in the dense 



living and when prepared for food. More thickets, as well as in bamboo-jungles, 



