DOMESTICATED ANIMALS 71 



jungle-fowl of India. This bird is dark-red in 

 color, sleeps in low trees, and roosts night after 

 night in the same place. It nests on the ground, 

 and the female has the habit of cackling when she 

 has laid an egg— a rather strange practice for a 

 bird. Polygamy prevails. The males are exceed- 

 ingly pugnacious, and sing to the sunrise as their 

 town-dwelling descendants do the world over to- 

 day. 



Domesticated chickens have many w^ays of act- 

 ing which can be understood only by a knowledge 

 of the ways of their ancestors. Those ways are 

 not exactly vestigial, that is, they are not useless, 

 but many of them probably never would have been 

 originated at all if chickens had always lived in 

 the conditions they now live in. The wild chick- 

 ens (jungle-fowls) had them because they were 

 useful. The domestic chickens have them merely 

 because they have been presented to them. 



Domestic chickens make their nests on the 

 ground, not in trees as most birds do. They fol- 

 low their ancestors. But they sleep in trees, 

 either real or artificial, not on the ground as ducks 

 and geese do. Chickens also have the habit of 

 sleeping night after night in the same place, like 

 the jungle-fowl. Take young chickens and put 

 them to roost in a certain place two or three times 

 and they will roost there of their own accord 

 after that. 



The domestic hen hides her nest. She also has 

 the instinct, when she has laid an egg, to announce 



