286 MY POULTRY DAY BY DAY 
things he has found. I am afraid, too, he is a bit of a rogue, for he 
will sometimes call his flock, who troop round expectant of some- 
thing good, to find “nothing doing” in the way of a meal. 
Amorous to a degree, he will often try to entice the early pullet 
into the nest to make her lay. Whence this instinct ? He has 
never seen an egg and yet at the appointed time he will enter a 
nest and call to his mate, for he has usually a favourite, a sort of 
queen of the harem. I have seen him lead an expectant pullet 
round a haystack searching for a suitable spot to lay, and when 
she has gone to the nest he will hover in the vicinity as if in 
conscious pride of the daily miracle—an egg. 
The White Leghorn pullet is frequently referred to as a wild 
creature. No doubt she is much less domestic than some birds, 
such as the Rhode Island Red, who will sit uninvited on your lap, 
but she is not “wild” in the sense that she is fierce or even un- 
tamable. She is easily made friends with, nor is she so shy with 
strangers as are, say, Orpingtons. There is a prevailing belief that 
a Leghorn will fly over high fences, get into neighbours’ gardens, 
and generally play the deuce, if she does not actually run 
amok. 
In this respect the Leghorn is much maligned. She can fly, 
of course, and at times she does fly like a pigeon, uttering a wild 
ery all the while, but such ongoings are only pretty Fanny’s 
fretful ways. As a rule, she is a model of good behaviour. By 
way of experiment I placed a dozen in a house behind a three-foot 
wire fence and they never attempted to fly over to join other 
fowls. If by any chance they were startled and flew over the fence 
in fear, they were never happy till they were safely back again. 
I can give the White Leghorn an excellent character. She is 
docile without being servile ; she is:proud without being haughty ; 
she is self-conscious without being an egoist. 
Like the male bird, she also has her points of beauty. She 
carries a large undulating comb, and her keen, bright eye is ever 
on the alert. She has the most graceful, swan-like carriage of any 
fowl. Her body sways and swings like a ballet dancer, and with 
long, low back, and fan-like tail rising almost vertically, one could 
