for the purpose. I was much struck by the
non-prosperity of a set of young fowls I had
sequestered in a roomy sunny hen-house, apart
from the others. Their good food remained
hardly tasted on the ground. They did not
grow any way but lean. At length I joined
them to the old set, from which I had separated
them for fear they should be bullied. What a
change for the better! True they were bullied!
but they fought and scrambled, and learned to
desire; the first step towards enjoyment. They
grew strong, large, and fat, in a few days rather
than weeks.

As regards the characteristic emotions of
poultry, their tempers, humours, and passionate
endowments, their loves and hates, we find
strong generic features peculiar to all the race.
The cock's combativeness and courage in
defending his hens, the hen's boldness in defending
her brood, are readily understood. Not so
easily the apparent cowardice of both sexes.
The quality of courage is, as regards them, not
less than as regards human beings, often misconceived.
Fear is not, in truth, cowardice. There is
no courage without an adequate object for being
courageous. Out of that sphere the instincts
of self-preservation do and must prevail, "What
is fear?" asked the boy Nelson. "A guard
against needless danger," might have been
answered to the young hero. It is no wonder,
then, that when all motive for courage is taken
away, fowls are particularly subject to the
passion of fear. Their lives are at the mercy of
a thousand perils. There is always the great
peril of the knife hanging over them. And, really,
by some traditional wisdom they seem to know
it. The gardener, the cook, entering into the
poultry-yard, always creates a panic there: and I
fancy the fowls have remarked, like Hawthorne's
pilgrims, when the celestial railroad had brought
them to the City of Vanity, that "those who
suddenly vanish like a soap-bubble from amongst
them, never appear again." After the first
raid upon them, a brood of young chickens lose
much of their familiarity and gaiety, and when
the fated pullet knows it is she, and not another,
that is to be caught, what additional flutter in
her wings, what extra anguish in her screams!
It is the horror of the sparrows in the Zoological
Gardens when the snake has selected his
victim. But besides this great daily peril, there
are a thousand other dangers from which
Providence teaches them to escape by timely
caution. If the air grows dark above the
poultry-yard, it may be a cloud, but it may also
be a kite, that causes the shadow. Therefore,
with a peculiar prolonged note of warning the
cock often sends his hens into a corner, and
stands guard before them. Nor is this a vain
prudence. One of my finest hens was in my
view struck by a kite, which had time to drink
some of her blood from the neck before I
hastened up and found her dying. If a leaf
rustles along the ground, the hen-mother may
well with frantic shrieks call back her little
brood into the coop. For did not some such
sound precede the spring of a cat, which one
day carried off her finest chicken? Then,
naturally, what a terror to a fowl is anything that
indicates a rat! I cannot forget the wild stare
in the eyes of a sitting hen, from under whose
wings I discovered that a rat had contrived to
abstract sundry eggs. Yet she did not desert
the remainder, and after I had had her removed
into a safer quarter she successfully completed
her incubation over the diminished number.

Loves and hates and jealousies amongst the
cocks and hens rage strong and high. By their
violence one is reminded of a philosophic saying,
"God gives us passions to carry us too far, lest
they should not carry us far enough." In the
poultry-yard a cock has always a favourite
sultana, whose charms, like the charms of women
that have bewitched heroes, are generally
problematical. Yet she kindles a vast name. A gentleman
who fancies poultry told me that, after the
loss of his favourite hen, a Cochin became so
furious that no person without a stick could
enter the poultry-yard. A foolhardy visitor
who would none of the precautions, was much
hurt by his sudden attack.

It is pretty to see the attention of a good
husband to the hen, who may be called, par
excellence, his wife. He will accompany her to
the nest when she is about to lay, and will
sometimes get into the nest himself, as if to air
it for her. The Cochin which I now have
frequently remains in the nest next to that in
which his hen is laying. And ridiculous enough
he looks—this great twelve-pounder—in a nest
so small, one wonders how he ever got into it,
and his large head projecting out from the narrow
space. Some fathers are very paternal, and take
a good share in leading about the chickens, and
calling them tenderly to eat. One father I had,
was never happy till he had lured the new-born
chickens out of their coop, as if for the purpose
of inspecting them.

Hens are also much attached to their
husbands. I had one lady who, after the death of
the spouse she had been brought, up with,
refused food, and in a few days pined and died.

Like many a human being, Brob's kind must
have his hatred as well as his love. And he is
a good hater. He will single out a particular hen
to hate, whose colour—black or white—perhaps
offends him. Unfortunate is the hated hen! Not
only does she get many a peck on the small of
her back—a vital part—but she is scarcely
allowed to eat. The plan seems to be to starve
her to death. The wretched creature grows
lean and weak, and either dies or must be killed.

Some dunghill lords get to be altogether
mysogenists. Something has soured their
tempers. And then, in the morning, when the
poultry are let out, the misanthrope stands at
the door, and administers a peck between the
shoulders to each hen as she passes him. I
need not say this sort of fellow is a bad fellow,
and deserves the knife. I was obliged to kill a
fine Brahma (the Brahmas have worse tempers
than the Cochins) because he had murdered as
many wives as Henry the Eighth. The hens also,
though more gentle as befits their sex, have their