DOMESTIC FOWLS. 393

ties which belong to knighthood. He is jealous, and has been
known to kill a hen which has hatched a foreign brood; and
he is chivalrous both in the treatment of his hens and in
their defence against their enemies. He has a sense of justice
too, which he does not hesitate to assert on occasion. Mrs.
Bowdich says: “On one occasion I saw a cock pursue a
hen round the poultry-yard; and, as she had a worm in her
bill, I at first thought he was so acting from a greedy desire
to have the delicious morsel; but when he at last caught
her, he gave her a knock on the head with his beak, and,
taking up the worm which she had dropped, brought it to
another hen, who stood witnessing the affray in mute expec-
tation. A further knowledge of the habits of these birds has
made me feel sure she had purloined the worm from the
other, and the cock had restored it to its rightful owner.”
Though natural fighters, cocks sometimes form friendships
for each other, and Captain Brown records an instance of
two game cocks, belonging to the same owner, who obsti-
nately declined combat though all means were tried to excite
mutual animosity. These same birds when placed in the ring
with other cocks fought furiously, and in both cases destroyed
their antagonists.
The Common ‘The hen gathering her chickens under her wings
Hen, js a favourite type of motherhood, and it cannot
be denied that in many ways the hen shows herself a modei
parent. The care she will expend upon her brood, or upon
a brood of ducks which she may have hatched, is well known,
and the courage she will show in their defence is well attested.
The following from the “Percy Anecdotes” is an illustration
of this: “In June, 1820, a contest of rather an unusual
nature took place in the house of Mr. Collins, at Naul in
Ireland. The parties concerned were, a hen of the game
species, and a rat of the middle size. The hen, in an acci-
dental perambulation round a spacious room, accompanied
by an only chicken, the sole surviving offspring of a numerous