CHANTICLEER 301 



Pale-faced Londoners, and blacks, and bronzed or 

 painted barbarians, all men all the world over, wake 

 at morn to the " peaceful crowing of the cock/' 

 just as the Athenians woke of old, and the nations 

 older still. It is not, therefore, strange that this 

 song has more associations for man than any other 

 sound in nature* But, apart from any adventitious 

 claims to our attention, the sound possesses intrinsic 

 merits and pleases for its own sake* In our other 

 domestic birds we have, with regard to this point, 

 been unfortunate. We have the gobbling of turkeys, 

 and the hoarse, monotonous come back of the guinea- 

 fowl, screaming of peacocks and geese, and quacking, 

 hissing, and rasping of mallard and muscovy. Above 

 all these sounds the ringing, lusty, triumphant call 

 of Chanticleer, as the far-reaching toll of the bell- 

 bird sounds above the screaming and chattering of 

 parrots and toucans in the Brazilian forest, A fine 

 sound, which in spite of many changes of climate and 

 long centuries of domestication still preserves that 

 forest-born character of wildness, which gives so 

 great a charm to the language of many woodland 

 gallinaceous birds. As we have seen, it is variable, 

 and in some artificial varieties has been suffered to 

 degenerate into sounds harsh and disagreeable ; 

 yet it is plain that an improved voice in a beautiful 

 breed would double the bird's value from an aesthe- 

 tic point of view. As things now are, the fine voices 



