1 64 DOMESTICATED ANIMALS 



need of food. It is very intolerant of the other barnyard 

 creatures, and often becomes possessed of a kind of mania 

 for slaying their young, not for food but from pure spirit of 

 mischief. 



Intellectually speaking, the peacocks are much below the 

 cocks and hens ; although they flock together, their sympa- 

 thies do not seem quick ; their cries and calls do not number 

 a fifth part of those which we hear from our chickens, and 

 their notes are prevailingly very discordant. Their cry of defi- 

 ance, answering to the crow of the cock, is one of the rudest 

 and least sympathetic sounds which is heard among the birds. 

 Its only merit is that it can be heard very far. It is readily 

 audible at the distance of a mile when it breaks the stillness 

 of a summer night. At present the bird seems out of favor. 

 At best it is a beautiful but annoying ornament to pleasure- 

 grounds. It is likely, indeed, that it may in time become 

 limited to its native wildernesses and to zoological gardens. 



From Africa we have derived one rather uncommon ten- 

 ant of our barnyards and fields, the guinea-hen. This creat- 

 ure, though of convenient size, hardy, and commendable from 

 the number of eggs it lays, has never won a large place in the 

 esteem of our rural people, and is now not much kept, except 

 in some parts of the Southern States of this country. The 

 difficulty with this creature, as with the peacock, is that it is 

 not truly domesticated ; though it will not betake itself alto- 

 gether to the woods, it prefers to maintain a half-wild habit. 

 It will not, if it can possibly avoid it, lay its eggs in any place 

 where they are likely to be found by man. Moreover, their 

 rude and little-modulated cries are in the summer season 

 almost incessant, and the din which a considerable flock can 

 produce is exceedingly vexatious. They thus do not fit the 



