418 PLAIN AND PLEASANT TALK 



complacently glorious amidst stacks of praised and devoured 

 cake, has an interest in this book. There is, therefore, a 

 certain interest which every civilized community should 

 take in the progress of the great art of fowl-breeding. 



There are striking analogies, also, which should be noticed 

 by every comparative psychologist. The doctrine of trans- 

 migration has some of its strongest proofs in the Kingdom 

 of Poultry. The glowing comb, the haughty carriage, the 

 resplendent tail-feathers, and ostentatious crowing of the 

 lord of the barn-yard creation, reveals to the sagacious 

 reasoner either the origin or destination of many other 

 '* lords of creation." 



Nor can one mistake the resemblances traceable in the 

 gentler sex of hens. Some there are industrious only in 

 scratching and cackling, but nervous, gadding, restless ; 

 never content at home, never so happy as when at work in 

 a new-made garden, and sagacious always of the very spots 

 which are most precious in the owner's eyes. Are these 

 the types of human busybodies, or are these resemblances 

 only accidental? Others are discreet, domestic, prolific> 

 useful and happy hens, human and feathered. Many there 

 are neglectful. Some fowls are laborious egg-layers, but 

 poor setters ; others disdain the pains of laying, but are 

 quite willing of a leisure summer's month to set awhile 

 upon other eggs. 



In the management, too, of their families, can any can- 

 did man resist the evidence of resemblances and affiliations 

 between hens and humanity? Here a hen walks forth 

 from her nest with but a single chick ; the whole farm is 

 too small for her anxious spirit. On this one precious 

 pledge she bestows more clucking, more research and 

 scratching, than a discreet old matron of many broods 

 would upon five annual generations ! And after all, what 

 is the little brat good for — lazy and worked for, but never 

 taught to work, it lives a few months petted and spoiled — 

 dies of neglect, or is anatomized by some science-loving 



