FALL POULTRY TROUBLES 



ever, I am chiefly interested in making them under- 

 stand that they are not wanted in the stable at 

 night. But is seems hard to convince them. Every 

 night I find them in exactly the same position as on 

 the first night, and every evening I startle twenty 

 squeaks out of the flock before I get them to move 



elsewhere. It is getting to be a regular chore. 



* * * * 



But it is as fabricators of new and fiendish noises 

 that the guinea fowl are in a class by themselves. 

 They are at it all the time. The mildest noise they 

 make reminds you of the filing of a saw with a 

 bungling mechanic dragging the file on the back 

 stroke. The noises they make when they set to work 

 to show what they can do are beyond description. I 

 have heard noises something like them in sawmills 

 when the circular saw happened to strike a sliver. 

 And they are ready to give an impromptu serenade 

 at any time. I used to think that the ducks were 

 the noisiest thing about the barn-yard, but they only 

 squawk when I am trying to talk. The guinea fowl 

 keep at it when I am trying to think so that I 

 cannot bear the thoughts that are trying to whisper 

 their way into my brain. They rasp out wild noises 

 when they are eating and when they are fasting, 



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