THE DOMESTIC FOWL. 49 



care and study in providing all necessaries for his household. 

 For this bird devotes whatever energy he has the livelong day 

 to the good of his dependants, and is solicitous about nothing 

 less than self. Whence the sage Pythagoras, considering the 

 provident and attentive nature of the creature, declared that 

 the Cock ought to be cherished, not sacrificed. 



The Hen is deservedly the acknowledged pattern of maternal 

 love. When her passion of philoprogenitiveness is disappointed 

 by the failure or subtraction of her own brood, she will either 

 go on sitting till her natural powers fail, or will violently kid- 

 nap the young of other Fowls, and insist upon adopting them. 

 A Hen in my neighbourhood was kept incubating eleven weeks 

 before she was allowed to lead forth a clutch. One of my own 

 took two chickens away from the family of another Hen, and 

 went about with them the greater part of the summer. A 

 black Bantam belonging to H. H. "had a singular habit of 

 adopting in the first instance a single half-grown chick. An- 

 other years he actually took a whole brood of eight little things 

 off their mother's hands, first doing battle with her for them. 

 These chicks she tended carefully for nearly two months, and 

 then turned them off in the usual way." 



In another case, and one which may be considered more 

 extraordinary, a Hen, of rather a violent disposition, was much 

 annoyed by a dozen small forsaken chickens repairing to her, 

 when she was sitting on some eggs in the crib of an outhouse, 

 and nestling under her at night. For a whole- week she was 

 at constant warfare with these little orphans, pecking them, 

 and injuring some of them severely. On a sudden, she seemed 

 to change her mind, and from that time became excessively 

 fond of them, and in a day or two left her nest eggs, and 

 proved a careful and tender mother to them for several months. 

 This Hen was a Silver Poland. 



" I witnessed this morning the daring courage of one of my 

 Hens, in knocking a Crow, stunned and senseless on the earth, 



