S04 CLASS AVES. * 



a substitute for the hen, as the latter might by this means be 

 continuously engaged in the business of reproduction. But 

 it must be owned that the means adopted for this purpose 

 are not of the most merciful description. Reaumur was of 

 this opinion : and not thinking it necessary to make the capon 

 drunk, to teach him the trade of a conductor, and still less 

 to pluck out his feathers, which would contribute to keep 

 the chickens warm, he deemed it sufficient to put him at first 

 alone into a bucket, not very wide, but rather deep, leave him 

 but little light, take him out two or three times a day, and 

 put him under a cage, where he might find some grain ; 

 then two or three chickens were put into him, the number 

 gradually augmented as at first, and the success was exactly 

 the same. 



When the capon, thus become a conductor of chickens, 

 reappears in the poultry-yard, his demeanour is widely diffe- 

 rent from what it originally had been. Instead of being 

 melancholy, abashed, and humiliated, he assumes a bold, 

 lofty, and triumphant air ; and such is the influence of 

 audacity over all animals, that this borrowed carriage com- 

 pletely imposes on the cocks and hens, and prevents them 

 from disturbing him in the fulfilment of his charge. At 

 first he is a little awkward in the exercis^e of his office. His 

 ambition of imitating in his gait the majesty and dignity of 

 the cock, makes him carry his head too stijfF, and prevents 

 him from seeing the chickens, which he sometimes inadver- 

 tently thus tramples under foot. But experience soon teaches 

 him to avoid such mishaps, and accidents of the same kind 

 do not occur again. 



As the voice of the c^on is not so expressive as that of the 

 hen, to engage the chickens to follow and assemble near him, 

 this deficiency has been supplied by attaching a little bell to 

 his neck. When he is once instructed to conduct chickens in 

 this way, he always remains capable of doing it ; or, at all 



