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FANCIERS’ JOURNAL AND POULTRY EXCHANGE. 

When he is fat enough to kill, which will be in a week 
or so if treated as given above, catch it by the ears with the 
left hand, and with the right plunge a sharp pocket-knife 
into its jugular artery, as fowls are killed; now hang it up 
by the hind legs for half an hour, until the blood has thor- 
oughly drained away. Never kill a rabbit by a blow be- 
hind the ear, as is often done; this way is greatly inferior 
to the former in every respect, the flesh not being near so 
white or tender. 
When rabbits are bred for table use, I should advise all 
the young bucks intended for this purpose to be castrated. 
The rabbits served thus are greatly superior in size, fatness, 
and flavor to others allowed to remain in their natural 
state. PHILO. 


Items. 
In order to make our “Item” column as interesting as possible, we 
would be obliged to our readers for contributions of original matter, how- 
ever short—yes, let it be condensed and to the point, in a variety of 
style—facts and fancies interesting to fanciers. 

ges A family of original cremationists—Burn-’ems. 
pe@s- The ‘‘ Worst” fancier in this country is at Ashland, 
Ashland County, Ohio; and what is most strange, he is said 
to be perfectly reliable in all his dealings—his name is EH. 
J. Worst. 
pe@gs> The following lines are said to have been copied from 
a stone in Oxford: 
To all my friends I bid adieu; 
A more sudden death you never knew; 
As I was leading the old mare to drink, . 
She kicked, and killed me quicker’n a wink. 
BGS There is an elm 84 years old and about six feet in 
diameter at Franklin, Vt., and the man near whose house 
it stands, says that when he was a boy he pulled it up, 
which made his father so mad that he walloped him with it 
and then set it out again. 
peas An alleged lunatic was consigned to an asylum by 
his wife and friends. A gentleman said to a lady who 
doubted the victim's insanity: ‘‘ Whatdo you think madam, 
of his lying on his back in the barn-yard, and permitting 
hens to feed off his body?’’ ‘* Why, nothing more,’’ re- 
sponded the lady, ‘than that, like many other married 
men, he was hen-pecked.”’ 
keg A lot of rats were found, the other day, in a hogs- 
head that had been left open in astore at Exeter. The 
store cat, having been notified, climbed to the edge of the 
hogshead, but, after surveying the situation, jumped down 
and ran out at the door, reappearing with another cat. The 
two looked at their foes and retired, soon coming back with 
a third cat. They now seemed satisfied with their force, 
and made an attack, jumping into the hogshead. The cats 
had, however, miscalculated the force of their enemy, and 
two were killed, the other being taken out in season to save 
its life. 
peg~ A youth of Salisbury, four years old, and his young 
sister, saw a rat hasten into a hole in the barn floor. Said 
he, ‘Sis, the Bible says,‘ Watch and pray.’ You pray 
while I watch the hole, and I’ll swat him acrost the snoot 
when he comes out.’’ 

pa@s> The author of a recent book about Africa, tells of a 
forest of acacia trees he passed through. These are called 
by the natives, ‘‘soffar,” a word signifying a flute. The 
name is given because the acacia trees are pierced with cir- 
cular holes by a small insect, and the wind, as it plays upon 
the openings, produces flute-like sounds. In the winter, 
when the trees are stripped of their leaves, and boughs white 
as chalk stretch out like ghosts, the wind, sighing through 
the insect-made flutes, fills the whole air with soft melan- 
choly tunes. 
pa@s> A correspondent favors Galignani with the following 
additional list of the curiosities of the English language: 
‘« Fowlers speak of a sege of herons and bitterns; a herd of 
swans, cranes or curlews; a depping of sheldrakes; a spring 
of teals; a covert of coots; a gaggle of geese; a badelynge 
of ducks; a sord or sute of mallards; a muster of peacocks ; 
a nye of pheasants; a bevy of quails; a congregation of 
plovers; a walk of snipes; a fall of woodcocks; a brood of 
hens; a building of rooks; a murmuration of starlings; an 
exaltation of larks; a flight of swallows; a host of spar- 
rows ; a watch of nightingales, and a charm of goldfinches.”’ 
ges Crafty Reynarp.—Ireland has had queer notions 
in her time, and it is not so long since the fox, though dreaded, 
and hated, was treated with great respect, for fear of his 
working harm. ‘The old belief still lingers in the Celtic 
districts, and the good housewives, as in the olden days, lay 
wool on the bushes as a peace offering to the fox, or make 
mittens out of lambs’ wool for his feet, leaving them at the 
entrance of his den. They believe that the fox wears mit- 
tens on cold nights, when he goes on a foraging tramp, and 
in gratitude will not carry off the chicks of the donor. In 
‘West Mayo, and Donegal, the fox is always called the ‘red 
fellow,’’ the ‘‘gentleman,’”’ or some other polite name; for 
it is thought that he would spitefully kill every fowl be- 
longing to a person bold enough to utter his name without 
due respect. 
ges Wild geese every year, as population increases, grow 
fewer in number. For many years Long Island was a 
favorite place to shoot these birds during their spring mi- 
gration. There also they are not so numerous as formerly. 
As the birds are very shy, it requires a good deal of skill on 
the part of the sportsman to come near enough for a shot. 
The method generally employed to obtain from fifteen to 
twenty wild geese by ‘‘winning’”’ them on their passage 
north or south—the old-fashioned “stoolers’’ being regarded 
as entirely behind the age. These are tamed so that they 
can be “lined ’”’ to stakes, when they are taken to the bars 
where the wild geese usually stop to feed, and fastened to 
stakes put down in the sand, out of sight, while the gunner 
conceals himself in a box sunk in the sand, and partially 
covered by sea weed or meadow grass. "When flocks of 
wild geese are passing, these partially-tamed ones will call 
them, and usually they will fly near by or light, when the 
gunner rises and shoots. 
kay A friend of ours told us, says ‘‘ A Rural Reader”? in 
the Canada Farmer, the other day, how his wife cures hens 
of sitting; and, as it isa very novel way, we will repeat it 
for the benefit of others who are bothered with inveterate 
old sitters. Picking up some splinters from the chip-yard 
(some four or five inches long) she bound them firmly to the 
hen’s legs, leaving only the hip joints in working order. 
Biddie was outwitted ; like the old Dutchman’s hen she 
would have to sit standing up. 
