OUR FOREST CHORISTERS. 203 



watchful eye, and if a bird of prey appear, though ever 

 so high in the air, the careful mother announces the enemy 

 with a little inward moan, and watches him with a steady 

 and attentive look ; but, if he approach, her note becomes 

 earnest and alarming, and her outcries are redoubled. 



G. No inhabitants of a yard seem possessed of such a 

 variety of expression and so copious a language as common 

 poultry. Take a chicken of four or five days old and 

 hold it up to a window where there are flies, and it will 

 immediately seize the prey with little twitterings of com- 

 placency ; but if you tender it a wasp or a bee, at once its 

 note becomes harsh, and expressive of disapprobation and 

 a sense of clanger. When a pullet is ready to lay, she inti- 

 mates the event by a joyous and easy, soft note. Of all the 

 occurrences of her life, that of laying seems to be the most 

 important ; for no sooner has a hen disburdened herself 

 than she rushes forth with a clamorous kind of joy, which 

 the cock and other hens immediately adopt. The tumult 

 is not confined to the family concerned, but catches from 

 yard to yard, and spreads to every homestead within hear- 

 ing, till at last the whole village is in an uproar. 



' 7. As soon as a hen becomes a mother, her new relation 

 demands a new language ; she then runs clucking, and 

 screaming about, and seems agitated as if possessed. The 

 father of the flock has also a considerable vocabulary. If he 

 finds food, he calls the hens to partake ; and if a bird of prey 

 passes over, with a warning voice he bids his family be- 

 ware. The gallant chanticleer has at command his love- 

 phrases and his terms of defiance. But the sound by 

 which he is best known i&his crowing ; by this he has been 

 distinguished in all ages as the countryman's clock or 

 larum, as the watchman that proclaims the divisions of 

 the night. Thus the poet elegantly describes him : 

 " . . . . the crested cock, whose clarion sounds 

 The silent hours." 

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