190 CLASS AVES. • 



the cock lost his habits and manners ? By domestication and 

 slavery, which are often found sufficient to obliterate and 

 distort the strongest instincts of the brute creation ; but it 

 does not appear to be true, that the cock has entirely lost all 

 these sentiments. It may be observed, that he will sometimes 

 draw one of the hens into a corner, remove the straw which 

 he finds there, make a nest, settle himself in it, and seem to 

 invite the female to lay there, and point out, as it were, the 

 convenience of the place. He will sometimes perch on the 

 edge of the nest where his favourite hen is laying, and offer 

 her his services, appearing to forget and sacrifice for her all 

 the other hens, and, in fact, to comport himself altogether 

 like those birds which are monogamous. It may indeed be 

 remarked, that he always evinces a peculiar predilection for 

 one of the young hens ; he is constantly caressing, feeding, 

 and paying her every kind of attention. The hen too seems 

 sensible of this preference, always accompanies him in his 

 search for food, is the first to come at his call, and receive 

 from his bill the grain or seed which he has found. We may 

 easily conclude that she would follow him willingly, if he 

 thought proper to escape from captivity, and live with her in 

 a state of nature, remote from the haunts of men, and from 

 other females of her own species. 



The arguments in the last paragraph are taken from 

 M. Parmentier ; but we confess we cannot quite agree with 

 him in his conclusions. The cock, cannot, in any wise, be 

 considered as a monogamous bird, any more than any other 

 bird of the order to which he belongs, and which are, all of 

 them, polygamous ; this must of necessity be the case, from 

 the vast superabundance of females in all the gallinae ; neither 

 can any stress be laid on the sort of a priori argument, which 

 he draws from the supposition of the hen's situation in a 

 wild state, and the necessity of her being fed by the cock 

 when sitting on the eggs. There are many species, not even 



