FANCIERS' JOURNAL AND POULTRY EXCHANGE. 



249 



onions, for I have seen fowls paralyzed or lose the use of 

 their legs, and finally die from over-eating chopped onions. 

 Cabhage is much better for winter, and grass for summer. 

 Chickens will do best on corn meal and wheat screenings ; 

 while they stay with the hen they should have the same feed 

 all the time. You would not give a baby any and every- 

 thing; if you did, you would not raise many. I put my 

 chickens out doors in a warm dry place, and feed them twice 

 a day ; early morning, so they will not run in the grass and 

 get drabbled searching for food; and in the afternoon, so 

 they will brood before dew falls, or if too early in the spring 

 for dew, before evening chills. I seldom ever loose a chicken 

 after they are strong enough to stand up. I have seen salt 

 recommended to be put in chicken feed ; if I wanted to kill 

 mine quick, I would mix in a good quantity of it, and feed 

 to them. I have also seen recommended boiled addled eggs ; 

 I think them unwholesome, but others can use them if they 

 wish. Some say " wheat screenings are useless," but I find 

 at $1.65 per hundred, and at least three-fourths wheat, they 

 are much cheaper than clear wheat, and the cheapest feed I 

 have ever used. I bought some cracked wheat, and paid 

 six dollars per hundred for it, but did not see much differ- 

 ence, except in price. Very respectfully yours, 



C. A. Pitkin. 

 Hartford, Conn., April 7, 1874. 



(For Fanciers' Journal.) 



Editor Journal. 



I have a valuable hen that lays about every other day a 

 soft-shell egg. She will sometimes be on the nest two 

 hours ; then again she will go oft' and on several times 

 without laying. There is plenty of old plaster, gravel, egg 

 shells, broken bone, and chalk for her to use, but it all 

 seems to be of no benefit. She is not fat, but in a good 

 healthy condition. "Will you, or some of your readers, tell 

 me of a remedy? I would also like to know what amount 

 of epsom salts and castor oil is considered a dose for an adult 

 fowl. Yours, K. 



Fulton, N. Y., April 7, 1874. 



iwl ami £matt i*t itprtnu nt. 



HOW BIRDS LEARN TO SING AND BUILD. 



"What is instinct? It is the " faculty of performing com- 

 plex acts absolutely without instruction or previously ac- 

 quired knowledge." Instinct, then, would enable animals 

 to perform spontaneously, acts which, in the case of man, 

 pre-suppose ratiocination, a logical train of thought. But, 

 when we test the observed facts which are usually put for- 

 ward to prove the power of instinct, it is found that they are 

 seldom conclusive. It was on such grounds that the songs 

 of birds was taken to be innate, albeit a very ready experi- 

 ment would have shown that it comes from the education 

 they receive. During the last century Barrington brought 

 up some linnets, taken from the nest, in company of larks 

 of sundry varieties, and found that every one of the linnets 

 adopted completely the song of the master set over him, so 

 that now these linnets — larks by naturalization — formed a 

 company apart when placed among birds of their own spe- 

 cies. Even the nightingale whose native sound is so sweet, 

 exhibits, under domestication, a considerable readiness to 

 imitate other singing birds. The song of the bird is, there- 



fore, determined by its education, and the same thing must 

 be true as to nest-building. A bird brought up in a cage 

 does not construct the nest peculiar to its species. In vain 

 will you supply all the necessary materials ; the bird will 

 employ them without skill, and will oftentimes even re- 

 nounce all purpose of building anything like a nest. Does 

 not this well-known fact prove that, instead of being guided 

 by instinct, the bird learns how to construct his nest, just as 

 a man learns how to build a house. — Popular Science Monthly. 



FUN IN ANIMALS. 



It is well known that lambs hold regular sports apart 

 from their dams, which only look on composedly at a little 

 distance to watch, and perhaps enjoy their proceedings. 

 Monkeys act in the same manner, and so do dogs, the friski- 

 ness of which resembles that of children. Mr. Leigh Hunt 

 once told Dr. Robert Chambers that he had observed a young 

 spider sporting about his parents, running up to and away 

 from it in a playful manner. He has likewise watched a 

 kitten amusing itself by running along past its mother, to 

 whom she always gave a little pat on the cheek as she passed. 

 The elder cat endured the pats tranquilly for a while, but at 

 length becoming irritated, she took an opportunity to hit 

 her offspring a blow on the side of the head, which sent the 

 little creature spinning to the other side of the room, where 

 she looked extremely puzzled at what had happened. An 

 irritated human being would have acted in precisely the 

 same manner. 



PET CROWS. 



It was my lot once upon a time to be down with fever in 

 India. The room in which I lay was the upper part of an 

 antiquated building in a rather lonely part of the suburbs of 

 a town. It had three windows, close to which grew a large 

 banyan tree, beneath the shade of whose branches the crew 

 of a line-of-battle ship might have hung their hammocks 

 with comfort. The tree was inhabited by a colony of crows. 

 We stood — the crows and I — in the relation of over-the-way 

 to each other. Now, of all birds that fly, the Indian crow 

 must bear the palm for audacity. Living by his wits, he is 

 ever on the best of terms with himself, and his impudence 

 leads him to dare anything. "Whenever by any chance 

 Pandoo, my attendant, left the room, these black gentry paid 

 me a visit. Hopping in by the score, and, regarding me no 

 more than the bed-post, they commenced a minute inspection 

 of everything in the room, trying to destroy everything that 

 could not be eaten or carried away. They rent the towels, 

 drilled holes in my uniform, stole the buttons from' my coat, 

 and smashed my bottles. One used to sit on a screen close 

 by my bed every day and scan my face with his evil eye, 

 saying, as plainly as could be: — " You're getting thinner and 

 beautifully less ; in a day or two you won't be able to lift a 

 hand, then I'll have the pleasure of picking out your two 

 eyes." 



Amid such doings my servant would generally come to 

 my relief, perhaps to find such a scene as this : — Two or 

 three pairs of hostile crows, with their feathers standing up 

 round their necks, engaged in deadly combat on the floor 

 over a silver spoon or a tooth brush ; half a dozen perched 

 upon every available chair ; an unfortunate lizzard, with a 

 crow at each end of it, getting whirled widely round the 

 room, each crow thinking he had the best right to it ; crows 



