FLORIDA POULTRY. 283 



So she clucked and clucked, and coaxed, until she had 

 gathered around her, inside the coop, as many chickens as 

 it would hold, from the downy balls on legs, recently 

 hatched, to the largest that could squeeze through the bars 

 to reach her. 



That was amusing enough ; but at night when we went 

 to close up the coop from nocturnal enemies, it was still 

 more comical to see five coops each occupied by an angry, 

 ruffled hen, not a single chicken of their respective broods 

 having remained faithful to them, but all having deserted 

 to the stranger-mother who had literally ' ' taken them in ! " 



Her coop ! the floor of it could not be seen for the num- 

 ber of squatting, contented chickens of all sizes that had 

 been unable to push beneath the abductor of the innocents, 

 whose broad white wings were spread out upon each side 

 almost horizontal with her back ; little feet and little heads 

 with bright, inquiring eyes, peeped out from beneath her 

 soft white feathers, and two wee ones had clambered upon 

 her back, and cuddled down among the feathers of her 

 neck. 



It was one of the most touching and most curious sights 

 we ever saw, all the more so that we knew, though she did 

 not, that this motherly hen, forbidden a family of her own, 

 had been condemned to death. 



Unwittingly she had saved her own life. The will to 

 sacrifice her was gone ; instead, she was set at liberty, and 

 offered a nest of eggs, which she scornfully refused. Why 

 indeed, should she set patiently for three weeks in one spot, 

 when she could, by simply clucking, gather around her 

 *'a large and interesting family of small children?" For 

 that nondescript family, from the largest to the smallest, 

 was not a temporary case of adoption on either side. The 

 chicks declined to return to their original mothers ; and so 

 at last these much injured and wrathful individuals were 



