314 



DOMESTIC FOWLS. 



" A yard she had with pales enclosed about, 

 Some high, some low, and a dry ditch without. 

 Within this homestead lived, without a peer, 

 For crowing loud, the noble chanticleer; 

 High was his comb, and coral-red withal, 

 In dents embattled, like a castle wall : 

 His bill was raven-black, and shone like jet; 

 Blue were his legs, and orient were his feet, 

 White were his nails, like silver to behold, 

 His body glittering like to burnished gold." 



THE beautiful lines above, descriptive of the old English farm- yard 

 cock, were modernized by Dry den and not at all improved, if com- 

 pared with the original, written by Chaucer, author of the " Canter- 

 bury Tales," who was buried in Westminster Abbey in the year 

 1400. It is beyond doubt the finest word-painting of Chanticleer 

 ever penned by poet. Poultry are not only pretty, but profitable. 

 Every boy is fond of a new-laid egg now and then, and what a smile 

 there is on the mother's or sister's face after it has been decided that 

 a pudding shall be made for dinner, when you bring in the basin of 

 eggs unexpectedly, having more than you require the hens to sit on. 

 Then it is an interesting sight to see the hen with her little brood of 

 chicks, to notice what care she takes of them, arid, above all, to 

 know that Our Saviour looked upon the same objects and said to a 

 rebellious race, " How often would I have gathered thy children 

 together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings;" but 

 He tells us they would not come. Then think of the beautiful passage 

 about the hen lifting up her head to heaven every time she drinks, 

 in Bunyan'a " Pilgrim's Progress ;" but were we to point out a 



