A CHAPTER ON FOWLS. 
187 
have induced him to undergo so many sacrifices 
or sustained him under so many trials. Higher 
principles and worthier motives alone enabled 
him to meet such discouragements and accom¬ 
plish such miracles of achievements. He has 
enlarged and enriched the domains of a pleasing 
and useful science; he has revealed to us the 
existence of many species of birds before un¬ 
known; he has given us more accurate infor¬ 
mation of the forms and habits of those that 
were known ; he has corrected the blunders of 
of his predecessors; and he has imparted to the 
study of natural history the grace and fascina¬ 
tion of romance. 
By his pencil and his pen, he has made the 
world eternally his debtor. Exquisite delinea¬ 
tions of the visible and vocal ornaments of the 
air, drawn with so much nicety, colored with so 
much brilliancy, as they are seen in their own 
favorite haunts, who can adequate describe? 
A peculiar ease, vigor, and animation mark 
Mr. Audubon’s written style. His descriptions 
of birds in their various moods are not the dull 
and dry details of a naturalist, but the warm, 
lively, picturesque paintings of a poet. To open 
at any page of his volumes is to step at once 
into a region of agreeable forms and enraptur¬ 
ing sounds. He seems to enter into the very 
spirits of birds themselves, sings when they 
sing, and rises upon the wing when they fly. 
And his whole life, like theirs, seems to have 
been a perpetual and cheerful ascription of 
praise, to that 
“ Power whose care 
Teaches their way along the pathless coast, 
The desert and illimitable air— 
Lone wandering, but not lost.” 
-- 
A CHAFTER ON FOWLS. 
Having been inundated of late with ever-so- 
many letters, soliciting me for Dorking fowls, 
for which the writers appear willing to pay al¬ 
most any price, and ask me to send them almost 
any distance—and to which, I regret to say, that 
I have been obliged to send refusals, owing to 
my having only my season’s breeding stock on 
hand—it reminds me that I sometime ago prom¬ 
ised you an essay with the above-named title. 
I am not a chicken merchant, broker, nor 
even an extensive chicken raiser, breeding only 
for my own use; and why it is that everybody 
sends to me for Dorkings, E know not, other than 
that in some of the lately-published poultry 
books, I am mentioned as one of the first im¬ 
porters of them into this country ; and the writ¬ 
ers of these letters, perhaps, suppose that of 
course, I could have no other object in view but 
to breed and sell them. True, I have bred a 
great many Dorkings during the nine years in 
which I have kept them; but I have given away 
two where I have sold one; and I am forced to 
say, that in nine cases out of ten, among the 
gifts , but a beggarly account has ever been ren¬ 
dered of their good results where I have inquir¬ 
ed after them; abundantly confirming the old 
adage, “ light come, light go.” The short of it 
is, those who had them, paid no sort of attention 
to their breeding, although profuse in their 
promises to do so when asking for them; and 
they either “ run out ” by mixing with other 
fowls—got their necks wrung, and into the 
pot, “ by mistake,” or some other equally ca¬ 
lamitous affair happened to close up their 
Dorking account; yet, as the poultry fever has 
of late waxed high, and the Boston world and 
pretty much all other parts of the American 
world who “ take the papers,” have caught, and 
are catching this same fever of “ Shang-high ”—• 
and all the other “ high-low-Jack-and-the-game,” 
as I guess it will prove to be, by the time they 
get through with these sorts of poultry—I have 
pretty much made up my mind to “spread” 
myself this year, and put every hen I have to 
cackling and sitting as rapidly as possible, and 
assist in supplying this wholesome demand for 
“ improved breeds ” of fowls, so far as the Dork¬ 
ings are concerned. 
" It is quite needless for me to attempt to im¬ 
prove upon the good advice which our pleasant 
friend Solon Robinson has given your readers, 
after visiting the grand crowing match at Bos¬ 
ton, last October, on the merits of which he has 
drawn such capital conclusions; and were I 
not considered an interested party in the ques¬ 
tion, I might give my own opinions upon the 
merits of this stupendous fowl excitement; and 
even as it is, I shall venture to talk a little 
about it. 
You know when we were little boys together, 
we dwelt near the sea shore, and in the neigh¬ 
borhood of New York, and used, sometimes, to 
go on board the India ships as they arrived in 
port, and see all the strange things which the 
captains brought home in the way of poultry. 
This was towards 40 years ago. Well, the first 
real improvement that I recollect in the fowl 
line was what we boys, (I mean all the boys,) 
used to call the “ Merino ” hens. Everything 
was “Merino” in those days; for it was about 
that time, say 1810, that the Merino sheep were 
brought into the neighborhood; and our father 
bought a Merino ram, and introduced into his 
flock ; for which all the neighbors ridiculed him, 
