such a variety of expression and so copious a lan- 

 guage 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 inti- 

 mates the event by a joyous soft and easy 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 clucking and screaming about, and seems agi- 

 tated, 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 over, with a warning voice he bids his 

 family beware. The gallant chanticleer has, at com- 

 mand, his amorous phrases and his terms of defiance. 

 But the sound by which he is best known is his 

 crowing ; by this he has been distinguished in all 

 ages as the countryman's clock or larum, as the 

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