THE OLD ENGLISH GAME 261 



are quiet, excellent mothers, clean legged, not too heavy, and also 

 first-rate layers. 



The food of the fowl consists of grain and other hand-prepared 

 substances supplied betimes by the owner; and when given run 

 of farmstead and environs, or grassy places with plantations of 

 sheltering trees, the fowl feeds upon the young shoots of plants, 

 insects of all kinds, woodlice, millepedes, slugs, worms, etc., berries, 

 grass seeds, etc. The way the fowl shows its fondness for insect 

 food by scratching is remarkable, and the number of wireworms 

 and grubs unearthed and devoured is astonishing. Of course fowls 



FIG. 144. THE OLD ENGLISH GAME. 



must be kept out of gardens by proper netting protection, then, 

 given free run of the homestead's adjacent ground, and not in 

 danger of trespassing on another person's enclosure, they profit 

 by destroying pests and by enriching the soil. 



The utility of brood-hens and their chickens in grass orchards 

 is noteworthy, for they do an -immense amount of beneficent work 

 by destroying insects and manuring the ground. Likewise on any 

 grass land not physically unfit, poultry-rearing thereon " tells a 

 tale," both as regards clearance of insects and aftergrowth of 

 herbage. Even in pleasure grounds a " clucking " hen in a coop here 

 and there with her chickens at liberty in daytime does much good, 

 provided the coop and hen be shifted betimes and the family cleared 

 away in due course. 



In fruit plantations hens with broods of chickens cooped on 



