FEBRUARY 115 



because it is feared that if she lies much longer, she will get set 

 fast with stiffness, and never find her feet again. 



As I returned from the farmyard after visiting Miss Pegotty, I 

 noticed one of the cocks in a dreadful condition. Its comb was 

 nearly torn off, it seemed to be almost blind, and its neck ran 

 red with blood. On inquiring the cause I discovered that not 

 war with its own species was to blame for these gory wounds, but 

 rather the malevolent behaviour of a certain turkey hen. This hen, 

 for some reason best known to itself, has a grudge against that 

 particular cock, and attacks it upon every occasion. The cock 

 stands up to it as well as he can, but weight will tell, and that of 

 this morning went near to proving his last fray. Indeed, I doubt 

 whether he would survive another. Turkeys, so far as my observa- 

 tion goes, are singularly cruel and overbearing in their habits. Not 

 long ago, in the little meadow on the All Hallows Farm, I found a 

 cock lying on the ground, still alive, but absolutely pulled to pieces. 

 Walking round him, and now and again inflicting a scientific and 

 meditative peck upon some open wound, was the old gobbler, 

 who no doubt had previously reduced him to this sad condition. 



Decidedly to-day was unlucky for fowls, for the two terrier 

 dogs, Di and Dan, hunted and slew one of them in the shrubbery. 

 They were caught in the act and received their just reward. After- 

 wards the hen, a very large one, was lashed to the younger dog, 

 Dan, its legs being bound about his neck, and its head fastened 

 under his stomach. For a while the dog sat looking the picture of 

 dejection, his sharp nose poking out between its tail feathers ; but 

 I think his grief arose from the sense that he was an object of 

 ridicule rather than from remorse for his crime. At any rate, as 

 he could not gnaw the corpse off, or even walk away with it, after 

 a while he turned it into a mattress, and spent the rest of the 

 afternoon slumbering on the top of it, to all appearance utterly 

 undisturbed in conscience. (Note. No more dead hens have 

 been found, but since then Dan has killed a duck.) 



February 22. Last night there were twelve degrees of frost, 



I 3 



