THE DOMESTIC FOWL. 39 



ing tone, heartily delivered, is short, hoarse, and monot- 

 onous, more like a croak than a crow. 



The hen is considerably less in size than the cook, 

 awkward in figure, and often ill-tempered and harsh 

 to other birds. The comb is very small, but the face 

 is much covered with a red skin. The bill, legs, and 

 feet are yellow ; the head, neok, back, tail, and quills 

 are of a rich brown ; the lower parts of the thighs of a 

 lighter hue ; the neck long ; the stature and carriage 

 lofty ; and the head small in proportion to the size of 

 the bird. 



The eggs are of a good size, and of a rich buff or 

 brown color, which are much prized by the numerous 

 epicures who believe that this hue indicates richness 

 of flavor — a fact which has not yet been made sensible 

 to my own palate. The chicks are at first very strong, 

 with yellow legs, and are thickly covered with light- 

 brown down ; but, by the time they are one third 

 grown, the increase of their bodies has so far outstripped 

 that of their feathers, that they are half naked about 

 the back and shoulders, and extremely susceptible of 

 wet and cold. 



The hens are sometimes employed to hatch the eggs 

 of turkeys, a task for which they are well adapted, in 

 every respect but one ; that is, they will follow their 

 natural instinct in turning off their chicks at the usual 

 lime, instead of retaining the charge of them as long 

 as the mother turkey would. Goslings would suffer 

 less from such untimely desertion. 



"With regard to the kulm fowl, the jago fowl, (im- 

 properly called the " St. Jago fowl," from the suppo- 

 sition that they came from an island of that name, one 

 of the Cape Verds,) and the Cochin-China fowl, may 

 be looked upon as so many domestic off-sets, not 

 uncrossed with others, of the Grallus giganteus, of 

 Temminck. And here, let it be remarked, that in the 

 jago fowl, so famous for height and weight, the comb, 

 both of the cock and hen, is large and often double, 

 added to which there is sometimes a crest of feathers. 



