118 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE FARM 
mow and among the fodder, where their eggs could be more 
easily found than in the woods. Here was another reason for 
encouraging intimacy. Nests were made for them; at first, 
as nearly as might be, after their own models. Then shelters 
were erected over their roosts; then pens were built to keep 
them from their enemies. So, by some such easy stages, 
poultry husbandry probably began. 
The most valuable fowls are those that furnish eggs as well 
asmeat. Eggs are pure food, containing norefuse. Among 
animal foods they are nature’s choicest product. They are 
edible without cooking and are at their best when most 
simply prepared for the table. All the world eats eggs; and 
in any land to which one may travel, whatever its culinary 
offerings, one may eat eggs, and live. 
Among domesticated fowls, chickens hold first place. The 
obvious practical reasons for this are the excellent quality of 
their flesh, the rapidity of their growth, their productivity of 
eggs, and their hardiness and ready adaptability to the 
artificial conditions under which we keep them. The less 
obvious, but none the less real reason, is that we like chick- 
ens for their interesting ways, They are eminently social 
creatures, endowed witha wonderful variety of voiceand signs 
for social converse. Their beauty strongly appeals to us. 
We are interested in the arrogant complacency of the cock, in 
his cheerful pugnacity, his lusty crowing, his watchfulness 
over his flock, his warning call when a hawk appearsin the sky, 
and his great gallantry toward the hens. How ostenta- 
tiously he calls them when he finds a choice morsel of food 
(tho he may absent-mindedly swallow it himself). We like 
the hen for her gentle demeanor, her cheerful, tho unmelo- 
dious song; her diligence and capability in all her daily 
tasks; her fine maternal instincts and self-sacrificing devotion 
to her brood. The chicks also appeal to us by their downy 
plumpness of form, their cheerful sociability and their soft 
