THE DOMESTIC FOWL. 53 



second year, and a hen Pheasant was hatched which could 

 never be made to breed. The two Cocks produced no more." 

 Buffos, We reserve for the section on the Pheasant Malay 

 Fowl, what is to be said respecting the absurd notion, that a 

 cross with the common Pheasant has been instrumental in im- 

 proving our Domestic Poultry. Baptista Porta states that he 

 himself reared hybrids between a Dove, "Columbus," and a 

 dwarf Hen, which combined the lineaments of either parent. 

 We are not told whether they proved prolific or sterile; but, 

 in fact, such strange combinations appear to be in a state of 

 what mathematicians call " unstable equilibrium" St. Paul's 

 Cathedral turned upside down, and balanced by a cunning 

 professor of gymnastics on the tip end of the cross the cen- 

 tre of gravity is in the wrong place, and the least touch, the 

 least hair's breadth of wavering, is sufficient to bring down 

 ruin. Or an analogy may be imagined forth by those delicate 

 chemical unions of matter, such as gunpowder and fulminating 

 silver, where the elementary particles are combined indeed, 

 but can hardly be moved without one flying one way and one 

 another, leaving little that is visible or satisfactory behind 

 them. Or a more homely comparison may be drawn from ill- 

 made melted butter, which is really not melted butter at all, 

 but a delicately manipulated commingling of water, flour, and 

 oil. Unless the cook be skilful, the flour settles in one di- 

 rection, the water runs a second way, and the oil floats a 

 third; proving that melted butter, like gallinaceous monstrosi- 

 ties, is an unnatural affair. The Zoological Society also pos- 

 sesses hybrids between the Guinea Fowl and the Domestic 

 Fowl ; curious creatures, that are sterile hitherto, and look as 

 if they intended so to remain. Their plumage is barred, not 

 spotted, with dirty white and gray ; there is something between 

 a ruff and a hackle hanging around their necks; and every 

 poulterer who sees them must wonder, not that they do not 

 multiply, but that they ever came into the world at all. It is 



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