64 THE BEARING AND 



apartments can be gravelled or littered, according to the re- 

 quirements of their occupants, and supplied with pans of water, 

 green turves, a cabbage, a handful of corn, or whatever else is 

 wanted. A recent traveller in Connemara found the cottagers' 

 Hens accommodated with neatly worked straw-baskets, fashioned 

 like a reticule, or a watch-pocket .at the bed's head. These 

 were hung up against the wall at one end of the hovel for the 

 Hens to lay in ; the reason for the arrangement being, that 

 the sow and pigs occupied the other end, and would surely 

 devour any eggs that were laid on the ground. Though eggs 

 fetched only fourpence a score, it would not do to lose them : 

 other provisions bore proportionate prices. The paradox 

 of starvation amidst cheapness and abundance is extremely 

 puzzling. 



If the floor of the fowl-house can be swept every day, and 

 sprinkled with fresh sand, gravel, or ashes, so much the better. 

 Dust and cobwebs on the walls, and up the corners, are neither 

 a decoration nor an advantage. Cobbett says that no pigsty 

 is what it ought to be, unless it is clean enough and dry 

 enough for a man, upon a pinch, to pass a night in it with 

 tolerable comfort; we say that no fowl-house is what it ought 

 to be, unless it is in such a state as to afford a lady, without 

 offending her sense of decent propriety, a respectable shelter 

 on a showery day. A false ceiling of wood suspended beneath 

 the roosting perches is a mode sometimes adopted of keeping 

 the floor of the house clean, by catching the dung as it falls 

 from the Fowls; but the plan requires extreme cleanliness on 

 the part of the attendants; the filth out of sight is apt to be 

 out of mind, and allowed to accumulate, and is also brought 

 too close under the Fowls themselves, even if it be removed 

 daily. To close all, a good door is requisite, with a small 

 wicket gate at the bottom, to allow ingress and egress. It 

 is better that Turkeys should not roost in the same house, as 

 they are apt to be cross to sitting and laying Hens; if they 



