The cock is very attentive to his females, hardly ever losing sight of them, leading, defending, and cherishing them, collecting them together when they straggle, and eating with apparent reluctance, until he sees them feed ing around him. The moment a strange cock appears within his domain, he immediately attacks him as an in truder, and, if possible, drives him away. The patience and perseverance of his mate in hatching, and her tender solicitude in protecting her young brood, are notorious and proverbial. Though by nature timid, and, on ordi nary disposed to fly from the meanest assailant; yet, when marching at the head of her offspring, she seems to be fearless of danger, and will dart on the face of the fiercest animal that offers to annoy her.
The domestic hen, if properly fed and accommodated with cold water, gravel, and a warm situation, generally lays two eggs in the course of three days, and continues to do so upwards of ten months. After having laid from twenty-five to thirty, she prepares for the tedious process of incubation; and in about three weeks the young brood burst from their confinement. In the more northerly cli mates, as in Greenland and Siberia, the species does not breed.
As the ckickcns reared by the female bear no propor tion to the number of eggs which she produces, various schemes of artificial rearing have been attempted. The Egyptian plan, which Iteaumur and others were desirous of introducing into France, is principally practised in the village of Bernie, and the adjacent district. The persons engaged in it spread themselves all over the country in the beginning of autumn, and each of them is ready to undertake the management of an oven. These ovens are of different dimensions ; but each is capable of con taining from forty to eighty thousand eggs ; and their number in different parts has been estimated at nearly four hundred. Reaumur's treatise on artificial hatching is well worthy the perusal of the curious reader ; and, for the most approved modes of managing domestic poultry, we may refer to the second volume of Temminck's admira ble work on the Gallinacea, and to Parmentier's excellent observations under the article Coy, in the Nouveau Die tionnaire d' Historie Xaturelle.
Besides the preceding species and varieties, we might, if our limits permitted, particularize several others, as G. triapus Crisped or Frizzled Cock, having all the feathers curled up, and wool-like—Morio, or Negro, so denomina ted, from having the caruncle and wattles black—Lanatus, or Silk, with the feathers like hair, and the crest and wat tles red-blue—Ecaudatus, or Rumpless, which wants the rump and tail—Furcatus, or Fork-tailed, distinguished, among other peculiarities, by a horizontal and forked tail —and Macartnyi, or Macartneyan, the Fire-backed Phea sant of some authors, a splendid and magnificent bird, des titute of the comb, but with a delicate tuft of feathers on the crown of the head, a native of Sumatra, very wild, and apparently incapable of domestication.
When fowls and chickens roll in the sand more than usual, and when the cock crows in the evening, or at unu sual hours, we may generally infer the approach of rain.
The common poultry, which we continually employ in propagating their kind, probably soon exhaust the princi ples of life, and therefore, in their domestic state, are not long-lived. As it is by mere accident, however, that any of them are allowed to reach the period assigned to them by nature, we are unable to ascertain the exact term of their age. Buffon supposes that, in their domestic con dition they may live twenty years, and in their native wilds about ten more.
the ground. The young, when first hatched, are clothed with a soft down.
P. Colchicus, Lin. Ste. Common Pheasant. The male
rufous, with the head and neck blue, shining with green and gold, and variegated with black and white ; tail plain and wedge shaped. The female is smaller, and brown-grey, varied with reddish and dusky. Among the more mark ed varieties, we may notice the white, variegated with the colours of the preceding, and the pure white. The com mon cock pheasant is about three feet in length, including the tail, two feet and a half in stretch of wing, and weighs about three pounds. Hybrid individuals not unfrequently occur, the offspring of different species or varieties of pheasants, or even from an intermixture with the common fowl, or some of the Galli.
The pheasant is supposed to have been originally found on the banks of the Phasis, in Colchis, the modern Min grelia ; but it is at present diffused over many of the southern and temperate regions of the old continent, and has been met with even as far north as Bothnia and Siberia. We need scarcely add, that it enlivens and embellishes our parks and thickets, and furnishes our tables with a delicate article of food. Owing to the shortness of its wings, its flies heavily, and to a small distance at a time. Being naturally shy and solitary, it is tamed with difficulty, and, except in the pairing season, it seems averse to con sort even with those of its own species. Yet, when these birds are in the constant habit of being attended in the coverts by a keeper, they will come to feed the moment that they hear his whistle, nay will follow him in flocks, and will scarcely allow the peas to run from his bag into the trough, before they begin to eat ; and those that can not find sufficient room at one trough, will follow him with the same familiarity to,others. They are fond of corn and buck-wheat, but will often feed on the wild berries of the woods, and on acorns. The young are fed with the pup? of ants, and with insects and worms. They are par tial to the shelter of thickets and woods, in which there is long grass ; but they will also often breed in clover fields. The nest, which is placed on the ground, is usually com posed of a few dry vegetables, put carelessly together. The female is anxious to conceal it from the male, and lays from twelve to fifteen eggs, which are smaller than those of the common hen, and of a greenish-grey, spotted with brown. The incubation lasts twenty-three or twenty four days ; and as soon as the young break the shell, they follow the mother like chickens. If undisturbed, the pa rents and their brood remain for some time in the stubble and hedge-rows ; but if scared or molested, they betake themselves to the woods, and come forth to feed only in the morning and evening. In confinement, the female neither lays so many eggs, nor hatches and rears her brood with so much care and vigilance, as in the fields. In a mew, she will rarely dispose her eggs in a nest, or sit on them at all ; so that the domestic hen is usually en trusted with the charge of hatching and breeding the young. Even when enjoying greater freedom, the hen pheasant is less careful than the partridge to call her brood together ; but she will shelter as many as seek for protec tion under her wings. After all, about one third of the young race never attain to full growth ; for several fall a sacrifice to the first moulting, and more to a disorder called oscitans or gapes, which proceeds from the pre sence of a species of fasciola in the trachea. In the mow ing of clover near woods frequented by pheasants, the de struction of their eggs is sometimes very considerable. As the cold weather approaches, these birds begin to fly, at sunset, to the branches of the oaks, among which they roost during the night ; and this they do more frequently,