FARM-YARD FOWLS. 



require but little food, and thrive cooped up in a 

 small yard where there is dry sand, ashes, and 

 sun. 



The feather-legged may often be kept for 

 amusement and fancy, especially where there is 

 convenience for no other kind, as they are not 

 so apt to scratch or do injury in the garden ; and 

 as they are, in general, great devourers of some 

 of the most destructive of our insects, they are 

 thus positively serviceable creatures to the farm- 

 ers, as far as their limited range extends, and 

 still more so to the gardener and nurseryman. 

 We are of opinion that it will soon be found as 

 necessary to keep Bantams to kill vermin, as it 

 is to keep terrier dogs or cats to keep down rats 

 and mice. They will save various crops from 

 injuries to which they would be otherwise ex- 

 posed. They would, to be sure, scratch a little, 

 and so would cats ; and if the very small kind 

 r.re kept, the African for instance, their scratch- 

 ing would do little harm. 



The white feather-legged Bantams are now 

 as completely out of vogue as they were for- 

 merly in esteem. The chief interest attached 

 to them lies in their hinting to the naturalist an 

 .iffinity with the Grouse or Ptarmigan. They 

 ;.:c uow nearly extinct in this country. 



There is also a South American variety, either 

 from Brazil or Buenos Ayres, which will roost 

 iu trees, and are said to be very beautiful ; par- 

 tridge-colored ; eggs small and colored like the 

 pheasant; both the flesh and eggs ;n-e fine fla- 

 vored and delicate. 



Mowbray speaks of a Bantam in his time, ex- 

 tremely small, and as smooth legged as a Game 

 fowl ; he probably meant the African, which 

 \vill hereafter be noticed. 



Aldrovandus, two thousand years ago, de- 

 scribed the cock with the neck r.nd the back of a 

 chestnut color, the wings at first black, with whit- 

 ish spots, afterward black; the quill-feathers being 

 white on the outer, and black on the inner sides ; 

 the throat, breast, belly, thighs, and legs, black 

 with whitish spots ; the feet yellow ; the wattles 

 large ; the comb double, and not very large ; the 

 beak yellow; the tail-feathers partly white and 

 partly black. The hen is of a yellowish color, 

 and every where, except the neck, marked with 

 oblong black spots. 



The Bantams are the fowls of all others for 

 the city. We have known them to prosper and 

 lay well through the winter in a cellar well 

 lighted. 



The following remarkable instance of the at- 

 tachment of a Bantam cock to his mate, we find 

 related in an English publication. Speaking of 

 the cock, the author says : " He is also capable 

 of such attachment to his mate, that we remem- 

 ber a Bantam cock and hen which were kept 

 for some years as favorites without any others, 

 in the stable-yard of our father, and when at 

 length the hen died, the cock seeing her life- 

 less, but naturally unconscious of its being a final 

 separation, hovered around her, calling to her, 

 and pecking at her gently, as if to awake her. 

 Though corn was offered to him, he refused to 

 eat, or to roost at night, and moped round the 

 yard, vainly searching for his old companion, 

 when not finding her, he flew away, and was 

 never after heard of." 



" One of the prettiest little Bantam patriarchs 

 we have ever seen," says Boswell, "was when 

 on a visit to one of the finest landscape painters 

 of the day, in the yard of our friend Mr. Brown. 

 He marched majestically at the head of his tiny 

 tribe, and was of a very fine breed from Ayr- 

 shire. They had the full scope of the garden, 

 and did little injury the door-step was their 

 feeding-placej and still did no discredit to the 

 tidiness of good old Bernie, so that two or three 

 Bantams may be kept without much molesta- 

 tion in any rural situation." 



We find in a late publication the following 

 curious account of a pair of Bantams : " Some 

 years since," says the writer, "a circumstance 

 in reference to poultry, completely ' turning the 

 tables' in every thing I have yet seen, came un- 

 der my observation ; and the simple narration 

 will, I am sure, amuse your readers. 



"At the time I speak of, I very greatly ad- 

 mired the sports of the gun, and being invited 

 to pass a few days where game was exceedingly 

 plentiful, became a frequent eye-witness of the 

 oddity I describe. The children of the bailiff, 

 it seems, in some of their rambles in early spring, 

 discovered a partridge's nest, containing two 

 eggs; and with that proneness for meddling, often 

 noticed in children, went home, and finding three 



