208 



DOMESTIC COCK. 



with such vigour as in some parts of the East 

 Indies, especially in Sumatra, where a man will not 

 only stake his entire property on the issue of a 

 battle, but likewise his wife and children, or a son 

 his mother and sisters ! In this latter place they 

 arm the leg of the bird with a sharp-edged weapon 

 resembling in form a scimitar. In this country 

 they are generally armed with an artificial spur 

 called a gaffle. Another inhuman practice was 

 long followed in England, that of throwing stones 

 at these poor unfortunate birds on Shrove-Tuesday ; 

 a custom that took its rise from an intention of 

 the Britons to massacre the Danes, which was 

 frustrated by the crowing of the cocks ; and as the 

 event took place early in the morning of the above 

 day, it was annually celebrated by the idle and 

 dissolute in after times : it is scarcely abolished in 

 some towns at this moment : but enough of this 

 inhuman barbarity. 



It is needless to state much respecting the care 

 and management of the young chicks, as it is 

 a thing so well known ; but if any one should 

 wish to inform himself fully of all circumstances 

 necessary to be attended to in order to attain a per- 

 fect knowledge of their nurture, he may consult 

 Temminck's Histoire Naturelle gen^rale des Pi- 

 geons et des Gallinaces, tome ii. where he will 

 find an ample notice of all particulars connected 

 therewith. One thing, however, may be here 

 stated ; that is, the artificial means used in Egypt, 

 and introduced by the celebrated M. de Reaumur 

 into France, of hatching chickens by thousands ; 



