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In attending to the duties of their appointment, and at 

 other times, your Committee have had frequent occasions to 

 observe and admire the domestic habits of the feathered bi- 

 peds. There is a dignified stateliness in the figure and move- 

 ments of the gentlemen poultry which commands respect, and 

 the females are models of propriety and good breeding. The 

 latter quality appears in the number, as well as the good be- 

 havior of their young. With what tender care the motherly 

 hen provides for and defends her numerous progeny ! See 

 how she scratches the ground to find their food, and with 

 what anxious duckings she calls home the wandering ! Woe 

 to those vile guerillas, the rats, who prowl about the farm- 

 yard, seeking their destruction ! With claws and beak she 

 attacks them and drives them away, with the courage of a 

 veteran ! It is as true of them, as well as with mothers of 

 our own race, that they scratch as hard for one chick as for 

 a dozen. When they pass the age of chickenhood and reach 

 to the dignity of full-grown pullets, they show the mother's 

 careful training in their dress and deportment. Little do 

 they care for the vanities of waterfalls, and they have here- 

 ditary aversion to " rats " and " mice." They are indiffer- 

 ent to balmorals, and make no account of hooped skirts. 

 Indeed, their dress can have no positive demerits, as they 

 only wear just what nature provides. 



These bipeds are a friendly and social race, and all rejoice 

 in the growth and prosperity of their community. No sooner 

 is there a new egg born in the world than there is great and 

 noisy congratulation from all parts of the yard, and all join 

 in the loud " cu cut-ca-da-cut" of the happy mother. There 

 is seldom any failure in her laying qualities, except in the 

 most inclement season, whatever may be the hazards in the 

 hatching. In this respect she is more fortunate than the pro- 

 jectors of the Atlantic Cable, who found less difficulty in the 

 hatching of their scheme than in the laying. 



The political relations of this feathered race are of the 

 simplest kind. There is no Eepublicanism in the barn-yard. 

 8 



