156 THE COCHIN CHINA FOWL. 



enough to have performed the migration from India on foot. 

 It has also been incorrectly asserted that lt the disposition of 

 the feathers on the back of the Cock's neck is reversed, these 

 being turned upwards; the wing is jointed, so that the poste- 

 rior half can, at pleasure, be doubled up, and brought forward 

 between the anterior half and the body :" the only foundation 

 for which absurdity is, that, in some of the half-grown Cocke- 

 rels, certain feathers, the wing-coverts, curl forwards ; but the 

 curling disappears with the complete growth of the plumage.* 

 But the long bow is stretched even yet a little further : " they 

 sometimes lay two, and even three Eggs a day, and that within 

 a few seconds of each other." No doubt of it; however phy- 

 siologically improbable the performance of such a feat may be. 

 And an American newspaper kindly informs us how other 

 Hens may be taught to follow so good an example. " A cute 

 Yankee has invented a nest, in the bottom of which there is a 

 kind of trap-door, through which the Egg, when laid, imme- 

 diately drops; and the Hen, looking round, and perceiving 



* Mr. Bissell further explains the mystery : "I had a Cockerel that 

 was unusually slow in getting his feathers, and, as may be expected, 

 was very much pinched with the cold ; he would frequently squat 

 down upon the straw in a shed, to rest himself, and perhaps for 

 warmth also (which is a very usual thing for them to do) ; and in 

 that position I have frequently seen him, in the effort to keep him- 

 self warm with the few flight-feathers that lie already had, turn them 

 under his wing and against his body, which I have no doubt has 

 given rise to misrepresentation. I have carefully examined him, and 

 can testify that the conformation of his wings is the same as in all 

 other Fowls, and now he is older and better feathered, he never 

 places the feathers of his wing in the position I have now described. 



" I find among my Cochins some feather-legged specimens ; and 

 others that I have seen, which came from Windsor direct, have some 

 of them the same appendages ; and I believe them to be quite pure 

 notwithstanding." 



