PEACOCK AND GUINEA HEN. 427 



one season, when they brood on these and bring up their 

 young. If full-fed, and their first eggs are withdrawn from 

 them, they frequently lay a second time. 



BREEDING. Those intended for breeders should be com- 

 pact, vigorous and large, without being long-legged. They 

 should be daily, yet lightly fed through the winter, on grain 

 and roots, and some animal food is always acceptable and 

 beneficial to them. They are small eaters, and without cau- 

 tion will soon get too fat. One vigorous male will suffice for 

 a flock of 10 or 12 hens, and a single connexion is sufficient 

 for each. They begin to lay on the approach of warm wea- 

 ther, laying once a day, or every other day, till they have com- 

 pleted their litter ; which in the young or indifferently fed, may 

 be 10 or 12, and in the older ones, sometimes reaches 20. 

 The hen is sly in secreting her nest, but usually selects a dry, 

 well-protected place. She is an inveterate sitter, and care- 

 fully hatches most of her eggs. The young may be allowed 

 to remain for 24 hours without eating, then fed with hard- 

 boiled eggs, made fine, or crumbs of wheat bread. Boiled 

 milk, curds, butter-milk, &c. are food for them. As they get 

 older, oat or barley-meal is suitable, but Indian-meal uncooked, 

 is hurtful to them when quite young. They are very tender, 

 and will bear neither cold or wet, and it is of course necessary 

 to confine the old one for the first few weeks. When able to 

 shift for themselves, they may wander over the fields at plea- 

 sure ; and from their great fondness for insects, they will rid 

 the meadows of innumerable grasshoppers, dec., which often 

 do incalculable damage to the farmer. Early chickens are 

 sufficiently grown to fatten the latter part of autumn or the 

 beginning of winter, which is easily done on any of the grains 

 or boiled roots. The grain is better for cooking. They re- 

 quire a higher roosting place than hens, and are impatient of 

 too close confinement, preferring the ridge of a barn, or a lofty 

 tree to the circumscribed limits of the ordinary poultry-house. 

 When rightly managed and fed, turkies are subject to few 

 maladies, and even these, careful attention will soon remove. 



THE PEACOCK AND GUINEA HEN. 



The peacock is undoubtedly the most showy of the feathered 

 race. It is a native of the southern part of Asia, and is still 

 found wild in the islands of Java and Ceylon, and some parts 

 of the interior of Africa. They are an ornament to the farm 

 premises, and are useful in destroying reptiles, insects and 

 garbage ; but they are quarrelsome in the poultry yard, and 



