174 COCK, HEN, AND CHICKENS. 



I have often wondered why men who lay two or three 

 hundred pounds upon the prowess of a single eock, have 

 not taken every method to improve the breed. Nothing, 

 it is probable, could do this more effectually than by cross 

 ing the strain^ as it is called, by a foreign mixture ; and 

 whether having recourse even to the wild cock in the for- 

 ests of India would not be useful, I leave to their consid- 

 eration. However, it is a mean and ungenerous amuse- 

 ment, nor would I wish to promote it. 



This extraordinary courage in the cock is thought to 

 proceed from his being the most salacious of all other 

 birds whatsoever. A single cock suffices for ten or a 

 dozen hens ; and it is said of him, that he is the only ani- 

 mal whose spirits are not abated by indulgence. But 

 then he soon grows old ; the radical moisture is exhausted ; 

 and in three or four years he becomes utterly unfit for the 

 purposes of impregnation. "Hens also," to use the words 

 of Willoughby, " as they for the greatest part of the year 

 daily lay eggs, cannot suffice for so many births, but for 

 the most part after three years become effete and barren ; 

 for when they have exhausted all their seed-eggs, of which 

 they had but a certain quantity from the beginning, they 

 must necessarily cease to lay, there being no new ones 

 generated within. 



The hen seldom clutches a brood of chickens above 

 once a season, though instances have been known in which 

 they produced two. The number of eggs a domestic hen 

 will lay in the year are above two hundred, provided she 

 be well fed, and supplied with water and liberty. Her 

 nest is made without any care, if left to herself; a hole 

 scratched into the ground, among a few bushes, is the only 

 preparation she makes for this season of patient expecta- 

 tion. Nature, almost exhausted by its own ^fecundity, 

 seems to inform her of the proper time for hatching, which 

 she herself testifies by a clucking note, and by discon- 

 tinuing to lay. The good housewives, who often get more 



