242 N A T U RA L H I S T O R Y
more difgüftful. The voice of the goofe is trumpet-like, and
clanking; and once faved the Capitol at Rome, as grave hiftorians
affert: the hifs alfp of the gander is formidable and full of menace,
and “ protective of. his. young.” Among ducks the feXual dif-
tinftion of voice is remarkable.'; for; ■ While the quack of the female
is loud and foriorous, thé voice of the drake is inwatd and harik,
and feeble, and ftarce difcernible. The cock turkey -ftrufs and
gobbles to his miftrefs in a moft uncouth manner ; he hath alfo
a pert and petulant note when he attacks his adverfary. When a
hen turkey leads, forth her young brood fhe keeps a watchful e ye;
and . if a bird Of prey appear, though ever fo high in the
air, the careful mother announces the enemy , with-a little‘inward,
moan, and watches him with a fteady and attentive look; but,
if he approach, her note becomes earned and -alarming, and
her outcries are redoubled..;
No inhabitants of a yard feem poffeffed of fuch a Variety of
exprcffion and fo copious a language as common poultry.
Take a chicken of four or five days old, and hold it up to a;
window where there are flies, and it will immediately feize it’s
prey, with little twitterings o f complacency; but if you tender
it a wafp or a bee, at once it’s note becomes harfh, and expreffive
of difapprobation and a fenfe of danger. When-a pullet is ready
to lay fhe intimates the /event by a joyous and eafy foft note.
Of all the occurrences of their life that of laying feems to be the
moft important; for no fponer has a hen 'difburdened herfelf, than
fhe rufhes forth with a clamorous kind of joy, which the cock and
the reft of his miftrefles immediately adopt. The tumult is not
confined to the family concerned, but catches from yard to yard,
and fpreads to every homeftead within hearing, till at laft the whole
village is in an uproar. As foon as a hen becomes a mother
O F S E L B O R N E . 243
her new relation demands a new language ; fhe then runs clocking -
and fcreaming about, and feems agitated as if pofiefled. The
father of the flock has alfp a confiderable vocabulary ; if he finds
food, he calls a favourite concubine to partake; and if a bird of
prey pafles over, with a warning voice Jhe bids his family beware.
The gallant chanticleer has, at command, his amorous phrafes and
hi? terms of defiance. But the found by which he is beft known is
his crowing: by this he has been diftinguifhed in all ages as the
countryman’s clack or Jarum, jts'the watchman that proclaims
the divifions of the night. * Thus the poet elegantly ftyles him :
“ — — — the ere:led cock, whofe clarion founds
“ The Jilent hours.V
A neighbouring gentleman one fummer had loft moft of his
chickens by a fparrow-hawk, that came gliding down between a
faggot pile and the end of his houfe to the place where the coops
'flood. The owner, inwardly vexed to fee his flock thus dimi-
nifhing, hung a letting net adroitly between the pile and the houfe,
into which the caitif dafhed, and was entangled. Refentment
fuggefted. the law of retaliation ; he therefore clipped the hawk s V
wings, cut off his talons, and, fixing a cork on his bill, threw
him down among the brood-hens. ' Imagination cannot paint the
feene that enfued; the expreflions that fear, rage, and revenge,
infpired, were new, or at leaft fuch as had been unnoticed before :
the exafperated matrons upbraided, they execrated, they infulted,
they triumphed. In a word, they never defifted from buffetting
their adyerfary till they had torn him in an hundred pieces.
90 i g Ä & * X * d k e * * * » * M t