THE RUMPLESS FOWL. 
263 
in as .good condition^ on the body of one which has 
no oil-gland, as on the body of one which is fur- 
nished with it. This being really the case, I drew 
the conclusion, that birds are not in the habit of 
anointing their plumage with the contents of their 
oil gland. 
The history of the rumpless fowl seems to be 
involved in much obscurity. Buffon tells us, that 
most of the hens and cocks of Virginia have no 
rump; and the inhabitants, he adds, affirm that, 
when these birds are imported, they soon lose 
the rump. Surely the inhabitants must mean that 
the progeny of the imported birds lose the rump 
Monsieur Fournier assured the Count, that, when 
the rumpless fowl couples with the ordinary kind, a 
half-rumped sort is produced, with six feathers in 
the tail instead of twelve. BufFon tells us, that 
this bird is sometimes called the Persian fowl. 
Perhaps it may be more common in that eastern 
country than in France ; still, after all, I find, upon 
investigation, that it is nothing more or less than a 
variety of the common barn-door fowl ; and that it 
can be produced by a male and female, both of 
which are furnished with a rump, and of course 
with a tail. 
Two years ago, in the village of Walton, a com- 
mon barn-door hen, with a rump, laid eighteen eggs 
under a hedge which separates a little meadow from 
the highway. There was not a rumpless male fowl 
in all the village, or in the adjacent country. The 
mowers were cutting the grass just as the old hen 
was hatching her young. She was killed by a stroke 
s 4 
