THE HEN FBVKR. 19 



accurate and fiuthful portrait of this lauded " magnificent " 

 and "superb" bird ! 



I \>-a3 anidous to examine my celestial &iends at once. 

 I caused the box to be taken into a shed, at the rear of the 

 house, and I tore from its &OQt a piece of canvas that con- 

 cealed them firom view, to behold a well! n'twi- 



porte — they were Cochin-China fowls ! 



But, since God made me, I never beheld six sttch birds 

 before, or since ! They resembled giraffes much more 

 nearly than they did any other thing, carnivorous, omniv- 

 orous, — fish, flesh, or fowl. I let them out upon the floor, 

 and one of the cocks seized lustily upon my India-rubber 

 over-shoe, and would have swallowed it (and myself), for 

 aught I know, had not a friend who stood by seized him, 

 and absolutely choked him off ! 



This is truth, strange as it may seem ; but I presume 

 they had scarcely been fed at all upon their fortnight's 

 voyage fix)m Dublin, and I never saw any animak so mis- 

 erably low in flesh, in my life, before. What with their 

 long necks, and longer legs, and their wretchedly starved 

 condition, I never wondered that the friendly reporters 

 spoke of their appearance as being "extraordinary, and 

 strikingly peculiar." 



These were the original " Cochin-China " fowls of Amer- 

 ica. And they probably never had the first drop of 

 Chinese blood in their veins, any more than had the man 



