FOWLS 



39 



Throughout all times and in all lands the common domestic 

 birds have usually been the special charge of the women and 

 children of a household. In some countries long-established 

 custom makes the poultry the personal property of the wife. A 

 traveler in Nubia about seventy years ago states that there the 



FIG. 21. Silver-Spangled Polish cock and hen. (Photograph from 

 Leontine Lincoln Jr., Fall River, Massachusetts) 



henhouse, as well as the hens, belonged to the wife, and if a 

 man divorced his wife, as the custom permitted, she took all 

 away with her. 



The flocks of fowls were usually small in old times. It was 

 only in areas adjacent to large cities that a surplus of poultry or 

 eggs could be disposed of profitably, and as the fowls were 

 almost always allowed the run of the dooryard, the barnyard, 



