known. Chickens hatched in the spring or summer begin to lay eggs early in the following spring; if, however, pullets hatched early in March be plentifully fed, they will sometimes lay eggs in the autumn of the same year.

Of the excellency of the flesh of the fowl nothing need be said; it is not always, however, that a young well-fed barn-door fowl is to be obtained, for the usual plan of the poulterer is to fatten the birds for the market; this practice if carried to a moderate extent is not objectionable, but they are often fed largely upon grease, and even crammed, by which means they become loaded with rank and disagreeable fat, to the deterioration of the flavour of the flesh.*

In France, the practice of cramming fowls is very common. The poor victims are mercilessly treated, they are kept in a dark place, or even deprived of sight, and closely imprisoned in one attitude, their heads, wings, and under parts are plucked, and at stated times food, by means of a sort of force-pump, is crammed down their throats, an assistant

A well-fatted capon will often weigh seven or eight pounds, and sometimes nine or even ten, In France, capons are taught not only to hatch eggs, but to rear and watch over the chickens, and it is said they make excellent nurses,

holding the beak open, while the operator introduces the tube into the throat.

Nor is

this the only barbarity to which fowls on the Continent are subjected, sometimes even in England. But we shall not enter into details of cruelty.

Fowls are subject to various diseases, most of them arising from damp, cold, and improper food. Severe catarrhal affections, swelled heads, dropsy of the limbs, rheumatism, or the pip, or thrush, are among the number. The latter is to be cured by washing the tongue and mouth with borax dissolved in tincture of myrrh and water.

There is one disease called the gapes, to which domestic poultry, and also pheasants and partridges, are subject, and which often causes great mortality. Perhaps in the first instance it arises from a cold or a croupy or catarrhal affection, but in every case several parasitic worms of a singular form and structure will be found lodged in the windpipe, the removal of which (and it can be sometimes done by means of a feather introduced into the windpipe and turned round,) is requisite to save the sufferer. It may be that these worms are the sole cause of the disease. One mode

of destroying these worms is by putting the birds in a box, and making them inhale the fumes of tobacco, blown into the box through the stalk of a tobacco-pipe. A pinch of salt put as far back into the mouth as possible, is also said to be effectual. The worm in question is the Syngamus trachealis, or Distoma lineare. It consists of a long and a short body united together; the long body is the female, the short body the male; each, were it not that they are permanently united together, being a truly distinct individual. How these noxious parasites become introduced into the trachea of gallinaceous birds is a mystery. But such is the fact. The fowl will breed, as is well known, with the pheasant, but the hybrid progeny is destitute of beauty, and not worth attention.

Hens are frequently to be seen which have assumed the plumage and spurs of the cock, and which imitate, though badly, his fulltoned crow. In these cases the power of producing eggs is invariably lost, from internal disease, as has been fully demonstrated by Mr. Yarrell. See Proc. Zool. Soc. 1831, p. 22, and Phil. Trans. 1827.

There are instances on record of poultry

becoming white from sudden fear. In the Proc. Zool. Soc., 1835, p. 54, is the following note, extracted by sir Robert Heron, Bart., from his journal. "1821-2. A black Poland cock belonging to my friend and neighbour, Mr. Kendall, of Barnsley, was seized last winter, near the house, by a fox, but his screams being heard by the servants, he was rescued, desperately wounded, with the loss of half his feathers. In time the remainder of his feathers came off, and he is now become perfectly white. This seems to have some relation to the human hair becoming white at once from fear."

THE PEA-FOWL.

The pea-fowl (Pavo cristatus) is a native of India, Ceylon, etc., inhabiting the dense forests, where it perches on the highest trees often above the range of gun-shot; and the sportsman frequently hears its shrill, harsh, and startling cry, while the bird remains invisible, or launching itself into the air, floats in majestic buoyancy hopelessly high above his head. When on the ground, the pea-fowl keeps much amidst thick jungle, and if sud

denly surprised, is out of sight in a moment. Besides man, many are the enemies of this beautiful bird, among which, the tiger, the leopard, and others of the feline race, are to be enumerated. In Ceylon, the natives assert that it often falls a prey to the slender loris, (loris gracilis) a small nocturnal animal of the Lemurine family, of arboreal habits. While the pea-fowl sleeps on its perch, its insidious foe creeps slowly and noiselessly towards it, and suddenly seizes it by the neck, which it clutches with such tenacity that the bird, fluttering in the agony of strangulation, drops from its perch to the ground, with its foe still clinging. Here it soon expires, and the loris devours its brains, leaving the rest of the body untouched. Colonel Sykes states that "the wild pea-fowl is abundant in the dense woods of the Ghauts: it is readily domesticated, and many Hindoo temples in the Dukhun have considerable flocks of them. On a comparison with the bird domesticated in Europe, the latter is found both male and female to be absolutely identical with the wild bird of India." In the passes of the Jungletery, colonel Williamson found these birds in great numbers, and the woods were strewed with