NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 231 



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 adver-^ 

 sary. 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 

 its prey, with little twitterings of complacency ; but if you 

 tender it a wasp or a bee, at once its note becomes harsh, 

 and expressive of disapprobation 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 



