130 COMMON FOWLS. 



greater part of their own subsistence by inces- 

 sant assiduity. The hens are admirable and 

 complete managers of their young, whom they 

 provide for, teach, and defend, in the most com- 

 petent manner imaginable. It is curious to 

 observe the old hens, when they have dis- 

 covered a particle of food, calling their brood 

 around them, by a peculiar cluck, which the 

 young ones well understand, breaking it for 

 them with the bill, if too large, and standing by, 

 perhaps hungry at the time, scarcely taking a 

 grain for themselves. Then again as to fierce- 

 ness and courage, deficient as the hen is in 

 these qualities when herself only is in danger, 

 she becomes a winged dragon for her young, 

 not hesitating to attack, with successful fury, 

 animals twenty times her superior in strength. 



Hen-houses should have boxes partitioned 

 for. .the nests, and poles for the fowls to roost 



