THE GAME FOWL. 221 



and ran like a drunken man tottering on his breast, sinking 

 back his tail while Nash's, full of fire and irritated courage, 

 gave the finishing stroke, that clove every particle of life in 

 twain. The brave bird thus killed, dropped at once from the 

 (( gallant bearing, and proud mien/' to the relaxed, draggled, 

 motionless object that lay in bleeding ruin on the mat. I sighed 

 and looked thoughtful, when the tumult of the betters startled 

 me into a consciousness of the scene at which I was present. 



The victor Cock was carried by me in all his pride, slightly 

 scarred, but evidently made doubly fierce and muscular, by 

 the short encounter he had been engaged in. He seemed to 

 have grown double the size : his eyes were larger. 



The paying backward and forward of money, won and lost, 

 occupied the time until the two Nashes again descended with 

 another Cock. 



Sometimes the first blow was fatal, at another time the con- 

 test was long and doubtful, and the Cocks showed all the ob- 

 stinate courage, weariness, distress, and breathlessness, which 

 mark the struggle of experienced pugilists. I saw the beak 

 open, the tongue palpitate, the wing drag on the mat : I no- 

 ticed the legs tremble, and the body topple over upon the 

 breast ] the eye grow dim, and even a perspiration break out 

 upon the feathers of the back. When the battle lasted long, 

 and the Cocks lay helpless near or upon each other, one of the 

 feeders counted ten and the birds were separated and set-to 

 at the chalk. If the beaten bird does not fight while forty is 

 counted, and the other pecks or shows signs of battle, the 

 former, is declared conquered. 



The Cocks were the next object of curiosity. A covering 

 was hung before each pen, so that I heard rather than saw the 

 Cocks; but it was feeding time, and I beheld innumerable 

 rocky beaks, and sparkling eyes at work in the troughs ; and 

 the stroke of the beak, in taking up the barley, was like the- 



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