The courage of the hen in defence of her offspring has been a commou theme of admiration ; the force of her maternal solicitude effects the most surprising change in her disposition and temper. Before she attained her matronly character, she was greedy, and always searching for food, fond of gadding about, and timid in the extreme. Now she becomes generous, self-denying, and intrepid ; she assumes the fiery temper of tho cock, and becomes a virago in defence of her helpless brood. An anecdote is told by White, in his ' Natural History of Sclborne,' of the punishment inflicted by some bens upon a hawk which had at different times killed their chickens. By some means this hawk was caught, and the owner gave him up to the tender mercies of the bereaved mothers. In his own words, "Resentment suggested the laws of retaliation. He clipped the hawk's wings, cut off his talons, and fixing a cork on his bill, threw him down among the brood hens. Imagination cannot paint the scene that ensued ; the expressions that fear, rage, and revenge inspired were new, or at least such as had been unnoticed before. The exasperated matrons up braided, they execrated, they insulted, they triumphed. In a word, they never desisted from buffeting their adversary till they had torn him in a hundred pieces." Poultry are the better for high feeding from the very shell, and on this account the heaviest corn is often far cheaper for them in the end than tailings, as regards the flesh, or the size and substantial goodness of the eggs. Young chickens may be put up for feeding as soon as the hen has ceased to regard them, and before they lose their first good condition. When chickens are wanted for domestic purposes, they are often left at liberty in the farm-yard, and if they have plenty of good food, they will be in the most healthful state for the table, and rich and juicy in flavour. Mr. Moubray ascertained that pullets batched in March, if constantly high fed, laid eggs abundantly in the autumn ; and if killed in the February or March following, were so excessively fat from the run of the yard as to open more like Michaelmas geese than chickens. Experienced poulterers will fatten fowls in two or three weeks with the aid of grease, which gives a luscious, but, in our judgment, a very disagreeable flavour to the flesh, which, though not actually diseased, is very inferior to that of the fowl fed at large in the common way at the barn door.
The practice of cramming poultry by the hand is quite common. A machine for this purpose is used in France, by which one man can cram fifty birds in half an hour. It is somewhat on the principle of a forcing•pump. The throats of the birds are held open by the operator until they are gorged through a pipe, which conveys the food from a reservoir below placed on a stool. In fifteen days, fowls are said to attain the highest state of fatness and flavour by this feeding. In addition to the ordinary paste of berleyoneal, or meal made into little balls with milk, the dried seeds and leaves of nettles have been recoil'. mended by the continental poulterers, some of whom give a little benbane-aeed to induce sleep, while others put out the eyes of the prisoners as the most ettectnal way of keeping them in a state of dark ness, which is considered essential to their becoming rapidly fat ; and ureter the pretext of relieving them from the irritation of vennin,they pluck the feathers from their heada, bellies, and wings. While fowls
are thus preparing for the knife, though their bodies aro closely con fined, their hinder parts are free for evacuation and cleanliness, and their heads are at liberty to take in fresh supplies of nutriment.
The practice of making capons (emasculating the males) is practised a little in sonic of the English counties, and very much in France, where the females are also rendered incapable of breeding, and termed in their unsexed condition poulardes,in order to give them the tendency to fatten. An incision is made near the parts, and through this the finger is introduced to take hold of and bring away the genitals, but so carefully as not to injure the intestines : the wound is then stitched up and rubbed with oil or grease ; and the comb (which appears to be an unnecessary and gratuitous pain and insult to the sufferer) is often cut off. The females are treated much in the same way, when they do not promise well for laying, or when they have ceased to be fertile ; they are deprived of the ovarium. The subsequent treatment is similar to that in the former case. Caro is taken to give them good food for three or four days, and during that time to keep them in a place of moderate temperature, to avoid the danger of gangrene, which, considering the time of the year—midsummer, when the operation is usually performed—is a very probable consequence. Pullets of the largest breed are selected for the purpose, as they yield the greatest weight to the poulterer; and if employed in hatching, cover the greatest number of eggs.
Cuvier states that the capon may be taught to hatch eggs and to act the pert of a good nurse, with a little bell round his neck to supply the want of a good voice. Ha asserts that the natural courage and energy of this bird are not abated by the alteration of his condition, in which his audacity enables him to impose on the cocks and hens, so that they allow him to strut about with his former gait of consequential import ance, and to fulfil his duties without interference or molestation. This seems incredible, as a bold and haughty spirit under such cir cumstances is unnatural in the extreme. The pallidness of his bead and the diminutiveness of his tomb and gills indicate the contrary dis position, and he is so despised by the other fowls that they will hardly condescend to roost with him.
Mr. Young, in his 'Report of the County of Sussex,' says that much art and attention are requisite to make capons, and that the Sussex breed are too long in the body for success in the operation, by which many are lost. A perfectly fat capon will weigh from seven to ten pounds.
As soon as the fowls are rendered sufficiently fat, they should be killed, or they will lose flesh and become unhealthy. The most humane and expeditious mode of putting them to death is by a smart blow with a blunt-edged stick, such as a child's bat, at the back of the neck. Higglers break the vertebrin of the neck by a sudden twist, and never bleed fowls, as this mode of dispatching them dries up the juices of the flesh. They bleed turkeys and geese however, after a stunning blow in the neck, not by cutting the throat, but by an incision in the upper part of the mouth.