NATURAL HISTORY. 317 



trying the patience and wasting the ammunition of the noctur- 

 nal plunderer. 



A white variety of the Pheasant sometimes occurs, but seems 

 never to be propagated. The nest of the bird is made on the 

 ground, and contains from ten to eighteen eggs of an uniform 

 dun colour. 



Sub-family c. Gallincc. 

 GALLUS. (Lat. a Cock.} 



Domesticus (Lat. domestic), the Domestic Fowl. 



The DOMESTIC FOWLS are too well known to need much 

 description. There are many varieties, the most conspicuous 

 of which are the Cochin-China, Crested, and Bantam. The 

 Game Fowl was formerly in great request for the cruel sport 

 of cock-fighting, an amusement which, although happily now 

 almost extinct, was in great vogue but a few years since. 

 The Java Fowl, of which the enormous Cochin-China bird is 

 a variety, is supposed to be the origin of the Barn-door fowl.* 



* A young hen of the Cochin-China breed, when introduced among the other 

 poultry of a farmyard, was shamefully persecuted by its companions. It was very 



