DOMESTIC POULTET. 



rides is ever intended to be brought in contact, and that the 

 food is triturated by being mixed with hard bodies, and acted 

 on by the powerful muscles which form the gizzard." 



Numerous experiments, some of them not of the most 

 refined nature, have been made to test the extraordinary 

 solvent powers of the gizzard. Spallanzani, Magallo, and other 

 men of science, have administered bullets, stuck over with 

 needles, by way of rendering them digestible, and they have 

 afterwards been found, broiken into pieces and partly ground 

 into powder. Other ingenious naturalists have for a time fed 

 their fowls on glass, and even this has been found smoothed 

 and rounded. A more extravagant theorist gave his hen a 

 louis d'or, who returned it him minus some sixteen grains in 

 weight. The same gentleman (utterly disregarding the moral 

 injunction not to cast pearls before swine), also, on another 

 occasion, tried the efiect of a fowl swallowing an onyx, and 

 found, in four days, that the bird's gizzard had diminished the 

 value of his gem one-fourth. Notwithstanding the success of 

 these experiments, I earnestly advise every owner of poultry 

 not to be deluded into trying their innocent hands in any such 

 unprofitable business. G-lass is not nearly so good a diet ap 

 barley ! 



THE OBIGIN OP DOMESTIC POWL Df BKITADT. 



At what period of the world's history renowned Chanticleer 

 condescended to quit his native wilds and become gall/us domes- 

 Ucus, no authority, ancient or modem, pretends to declare. It 

 is certain, however, that hens " clucked " in ancient Borne, and 

 that the crowing of the cock was familiar to the Athenians. 

 Indeed, when Themistocles, the Athenian king, went to war 

 with the Persians, he took advantage of the fighting of two old 

 chickens attached to the camp, to harangue his troops, with the 

 view of inspiring them with some of the valour of the too-pugna- 

 cious bantams. I wonder what would be the eflfect, if Keld 

 Marshal the Duke of Cambridge were to choose such a subject 

 for haranguing the Scots Fusileers ! 



He has been a bird of note from the most remote periods. 

 Several allusions are made to him in the Old Scriptures: a 

 most pertinent one, for instance, in Nehemiah, who lived about 

 four hundred and fifty years before Christ. He says : — " Now 

 that which was prepared for me daily was one ox and sis 

 choice sheep ; also fowls were prepared for me." The ancient 

 Greeks practised divination through the medium of the cock- 



