THE ROOK. 



137 



allowed to live, we don't know what may happen. 

 It has great spurs on its legs, and last summer it 

 laid four eggs. If I had had my own way, it would 

 have been killed when it first began to crow." I 

 received the hen with abundant thanks; and, in 

 return, I sent the old woman a full-bred Malay fowl. 

 On examining the hen, I found her comb very large; 

 the feathers on the neck and rump much elongated ; 

 the spurs curved, and about 1 J inch long ; the two 

 largest feathers in her tail arched, and four or five 

 smaller arched ones, of a beautiful and glossy colour, 

 hanging down on each side of the tail. In a word, 

 this hen had so masculine an appearance, that, when 

 strangers looked at her, they all took her to be a 

 cock, and it was with difficulty I persuaded them 

 that she was a hen. We allowed her the range of 

 a sheltered grass-plot, flanked on one side by holly 

 trees, and open to the lake on the other. Here, 

 also, was placed, in a cage, the young rook which I 

 had taken from the nest of the carrion crow. The 

 hen showed such an antipathy to it, that, whenever 

 I held it to her, she would immediately fly at it. 

 When visitors came to inspect her, I had only to 

 take the rook out of the cage, and pit it against her, 

 when she would stand upright, raise the long feathers 

 on her neck, and begin to cackle, cluck, and crow. 

 One morning the rook had managed to push aside 

 a bar in front of its cage. A servant, in passing by, 

 looked into it, and missed the bird. The hen had 

 also disappeared. On search being made, they 

 were both found floating side by side, dead, in the 

 lake below. We conjectured that the hen had 



