OF SELBORNE 191 



like, and clanking ; and once saved the Capitol at Rome, as grave 

 historians assert : the hiss also of the gander is formidable and 

 full of menace, and " protective of his young ". Among ducks the 

 sexual distinction of voice is remarkable ; for, while the quack of 

 the female is loud and sonorous, the voice of the drake is inward 

 and harsh, and feeble, and scarce discernible. The cock turkey 

 struts and gobbles to his mistress in a most uncouth manner ; he 

 hath also a pert and petulant note when he attacks his adversary. 

 When a hen turkey leads forth her young brood she keeps a 

 watchful eye ; and if a bird of prey appear, though ever so high 

 in the air, the careful mother announces the enemy with a little 

 inward moan, and watches him with a steady and attentive look ; 

 but, if he approach, her note becomes earnest and alarming, and 

 her outcries are redoubled. 



No inhabitants of a yard seem possessed of such a variety of 

 expression and so copious a language as common poultry. Take 

 a chicken of four or five days old, and hold it up to a window 

 where there are flies, and it will immediately seize it's prey, with 

 little twitterings of complacency ; but if you tender it a wasp or 

 a bee, at once it's note becomes harsh, and expressive of disap- 

 probation and a sense of danger. When a pullet is ready to lay 

 she intimates the event by a joyous and easy soft note. Of all 

 the occurrences of their life that of laying seems to be the most 

 important ; for no sooner has a hen disburdened herself, than 

 she rushes forth with a clamorous kind of joy, which the cock 

 and the rest of his mistresses immediately adopt. The tumult 

 is not confined to the family concerned, but catches from yard to 

 yard, and spreads to every homestead within hearing, till at last 

 the whole village is in an uproar. As soon as a hen becomes a 

 mother her new relation demands a new language ; she then runs 

 clocking and screaming about, and seems agitated as if possessed. 

 The father of the flock has also a considerable vocabulary ; if he 

 finds food, he calls a favourite concubine to partake ; and if a 

 bird of prey passes over, with a warning voice he bids his family 

 beware. The gallant chanticleer has, at command, his amorous 

 phrases, and his terms of defiance. But the sound by which he 

 is best known is his crowing : by this he has been distinguished 

 in all ages as the countryman's clock or larum, as the watchman 

 that proclaims the divisions of the night. Thus the poet ele- 

 gantly stiles him : 



" the crested cock, whose clarion sounds 

 "The silent hours." l 



1 [Paradise Lost, vii., 443-44.] 



