146 BRITISH AND EUROPEAN BIRDS. 



Those whom Man, for his Sport, is oft pleas'd to 



destroy, 

 Amidst vinous libations and boisterous joy. — 



This, of course, applies to the cock pheasant ; the colours of the 

 hen are neither so intense nor brilliant. 



The Gallus, or Common Cock and Hen, are too well known 

 to need description. Fifteen varieties have been named, as 

 follow: the Wild Cock, the Common Cock, the Crested Cock, 

 the Darking Cock, the Frizzled Cock, the Persian Cock, the 

 Dwarf Cock, the Bantam Cock, the Rough-legged Cock, the Turk- 

 ish Cock, the Paduan Cock, the Negro Cock, the Crowned Hen, the 

 Horned Cock, and the Silk Cock. 



The cock and hen came originally from Asia. The common 

 hen is, perhaps, the most prolific of birds ; if well fed, excepting 

 about two months in the moulting season, she frequently lays an 

 egg a day. When in a wild state, she begins to sit upon her eggs, 

 after laying fifteen or sixteen; and, it is only from the circum- 

 stance of taking away the eggs, that she produces a greater 

 number when domesticated. 



In Egypt, the eggs of the hen are hatched in stoves peculiarly 

 adapted to the purpose ; but it does not appear, from all the 

 experiments hitherto made in this country, including those by 

 the aid of steam, that any method of rearing chicken which 

 has been devised, is so good as that of suffering the hen herself 

 to hatch and rear her own offspring. The reader, who should be 

 desirous of obtaining more information relative to the rearing 

 and management of domestic poultry, may consult my Family 

 Cyclopaedia articles, Hen, Duck, Goose, Turkey, &c. It 

 seems probable, however, that the hatching of chicken by steam 

 in towns, where room is wanted for the roving of the natural 

 hen, and, of course, with difficulty obtained, might be made 

 useful and profitable, chiefly by an equable application of heat 

 as a succedaneum for the brooding of the natural mother. 



The cock is, naturally, a very pugnacious animal; the young 



