Fowl

“ Consider the wild fowl that, moved by some mysterious impulse, start on their prodigious migrations from the frozen fens of the Pole and reach at last the shining South and summer seas; the fish that from tropic gulfs seek their spawning-grounds in the cool, bright rivers of the North; the bees that find in the garniture of fields and forests the treasure with which they store their cells; and even the wolf, the lion, and the tiger that are provided with their prey. ”

“ Lifted far above all harm of fowler or impediment of mountain, wild fowl are steadily flying southward. The simple sight of them fills the imagination with pictures. They have all summer long called to each other from the reedy fens and wild oat-fields of the far north. ”

“ This fowl had short tail feathers, and winked with both its eyes, and looked very cunning. "Cluck! cluck!" said the fowl. What it thought when it said this I cannot tell you; but as soon as our good man saw it, he thought, "That's the finest fowl I've ever seen in my life! Why, it's finer than our parson's brood hen. On my word, I should like to have that fowl. A fowl can always find a grain or two, and can almost keep itself. I think it would be a good exchange if I could get that in exchange for my goose. Shall we exchange?" ”

“ Yes, it was about like that they looked when man took it into his head to tame the wild fowl. In the poultry-yards of those times lived, not the large species of our day, but birds as small in body and as quick on the wing as the partridge. ”

“ For the opinion is rooted deep in many minds that to surrender one's wings, to clip one's claws, to put a cork in one's raptorial beak, and masquerade in a commercial barnyard, is to be a very fine fowl indeed. ”

“ The fowl would approach the quadruped with notes of complacency, rubbing herself gently against his legs; while the horse would look down with satisfaction, and move with the greatest caution and circumspection, lest he should trample on his diminutive companion. ”

“ Shy of approach as a persecuted game fowl, it rises to a considerable height in the air when the approaching traveller is yet far off, and flies often beyond sight before descending again to the earth. ”

“ Is it not a matter of common notoriety that when pursued this fowl buries its head in the sand, and thus, of course, falls an easy prey to the intending farmer? If, on the other hand, he does not want the whole of the bird, he has only to stand by and pluck its feathers out, which, having its head buried, it cannot, of course perceive. ”

“ The most useful of all birds is the common fowl, seen on almost every farm and in the back yards of many city and village homes. The fowl takes to the conditions of domestic life better than any other land bird. It is more cleanly in its habits, more productive, more intelligent, and more interesting than the duck, which ranks next in usefulness. Fowls supply nearly all the eggs and the greater part of the poultry meat that we use. Their feathers are of less value than those of ducks, geese, and turkeys. ”

“ It feeds on plantains and other fruit, and also fowls’ bones. When busily engaged in picking the wing-bone of a fowl, it growls most savagely if disturbed in its repast; which well shows the nature of the beast. ”

“ The fowl in the farmyard is incessantly pecking about and swallowing now a grain of corn, and now a fly or a worm. In fact, it is feeding, and, as every one knows, would soon die if not supplied with food. It is also a matter of every-day knowledge that it would not be of much use to give a fowl the soil of a cornfield, with plenty of air and water, to eat. ”

“ The fowl, a native of the hot jungles of India, becomes more fertile than its parent-stock in every quarter of the world, until we advance as far north as Greenland and Northern Siberia, where this bird will not breed. Both fowls and pigeons, which I received during the autumn direct from Sierra Leone, were at once ready to couple. ”

“ Well, thought I, at this juncture, a herring and fragment of fowl are no such great matters; perhaps the Mouth will prove quite a natural mouth, after all. In brief space, however, the chairman’s plate was announced as again empty; and, I heard it receive, discuss, and answer various proposals of replenishment made to it by its more immediate neighbours. I thought I would escape; but no,—“the fowl was really so good, that it thought it would trouble me for another breast, if I would be so kind,” &c. ”

“ The bird in sable plumage flaps heavily along his straight-forward course, while the other sails round him, over him, under him, leaves him, comes back again, tweaks out a black feather, shoots away once more, never losing sight of him, and finally reaches the crow’s perch at the same time the crow does, having cut a perfect labyrinth of loops and knots and spirals while the slow fowl was painfully working from one end of his straight line to the other. ”

“ A domesticated fowl is furnished with the same apparatus as her wild sisters on the waste, for rendering her feathers impenetrable to water: yet, living principally under cover, she secretes much less of the oily fluid, destined for that purpose, and makes, when accidentally wet, a most ridiculous appearance. ”

“ It may be urged, in the case of domestic fowls, that from constant disuse, and from clipping and plucking, and other sorts of maltreatment, their wings can hardly be regarded as instruments of flight; we maintain, however, that you may pluck a fowl's wing-joints as bare as a pumpkin, but you will not erase from his memory that he is a fowl, and that his proper sphere is the open air. ”

“ Then I remove my hands, making-no "passes," nor any more movements than are necessary to take them away from the animal. Now I have the fowl stretched out before me motionless, and breathing deeply; the eyes are generally open. Some hens are more easily subjected to this experiment than others. Tame hens will allow much handling, and are hence never good subjects. A very wild fowl is an excellent animal upon which to make these experiments. ”

“ A mixture is made of saffron, a little gold dust, and fowl’s blood, which is smeared over the chest, forehead, and hands. The gentleman and lady each must take a fowl, and passing it seven times across the chest, kill it. ”

“ Then, as if to amuse themselves, they will run a few steps, open both wings and fan their sides, in the manner of the common fowl, and often take two or three leaps in the air and shake themselves. Whilst searching for food among the leaves or loose soil, they keep their head up, and are unremittingly on the lookout ”

“ If the Buff Plymouth Rock is an ideal bird in her feathers, she is even more so plucked. All white-feathered fowl, in spite of yellow legs, look cadaverous when picked. All dark-feathered fowl, with their tendency to green legs and black pin-feathers, look spotted, long dead, and unsavory. ”

“ At the right season too, if fond of wild fowl, we might find pleasure in watching the water black with coots, terns, and duck, or follow behind the sheltering curtains of the decoy the knowing tactics of the little dog who is so valuable an ally to the seductive tame birds. ”

“ Brains parboiled in salt and water to harden them are another good substitute for sweetbreads, and offer one more change from the perpetual joint and fowls that are on every table.
Game and Poultry.—A young fowl has large feet, knees, and neck in proportion to its size, and its thighs look white or pinkish. An old one has thin, scraggy legs and purplish tinge on its thighs; the scales look hard and horny, and often there are long hairs on the skin. If the beak is on, it should be soft, and so with the breast bone, which is frequently broken by the poulterer to give the bird a plump appearance. ”

“ The buff, white and dominique colors, unheard of in wild species, frizzles with their feathers all awry, the Polish with their deformed skulls and the sooty fowls whose skin and bones are black, are some of the remarkable characters that have sprung up and been preserved under domestication. The varieties of domestic fowl form one of the most profound exhibits of man's control over the laws of inheritance. ”

“ When the fowl fly rapidly up to the decoys, this end is suddenly raised with a jerk, so that the birds strike it with great force, and, stunned by the shock, fall into a large pouch, contrived for the purpose in the lower part of the net. ”

“ It seems clear that the fowl, like the pig, is used on these occasions as a messenger sent by man to the Supreme Spirit. In most cases when a fowl is slaughtered in the course of a ceremony, it is first waved over the heads of the people taking part in it, and its blood is afterwards sprinkled upon them. ”

“ We need the tonic of wildness -- to wade sometimes in marshes where the bittern and the meadow-hen lurk, and hear the booming of the snipe; to smell the whispering sedge where only some wilder and more solitary fowl builds her nest, and the mink crawls with its belly close to the ground. ”

“ Before proceeding to the description of these birds it is well to observe that it will be found the better way, in approaching them, as indeed all wild fowl, to work, if possible, up wind to them; not that wild fowl have the power, as some pretend, of scenting the odor of the human enemy on the tainted gale, as is undoubtedly the case with deer and many other quadrupeds, but that their hearing is exceedingly acute, and that their heads are pricked up to listen, at the occurrence of the least unusual sound, and at the next moment—hey, presto!—they are off. ”

“ A fowl, when supplied with abundance of food, [Pg 339] eats rapidly till it has filled its crop, in which the food is merely stored as grass or hay is in the paunch of a cow, and from which it passes through the second stomach into the gizzard, which digests it, by grinding it into a mass, partly by its own muscular action, and partly by the help of numerous little bits of gravel and small stones which the fowl swallows. This is necessarily a slow process, when the food consists of hard dry barley ”

“ Among the GALLINACEOUS fowls, large numbers contribute to the food delicacies of man. Some, like the turkey, peacock, &c., of considerable size; others, as the pigeon tribe, form smaller tit-bits.
The game birds, the pheasant, partridge, grouse, &c., and the quail, guinea fowl, and jungle fowl, are bagged whenever they can be obtained by the sportsman. ”

“ Fowls, of course, with their obligingly convenient size, are an invaluable boon in the hot weather; and it is a delightful relief when, with an empty larder and consequent light heart, free for a while from the cares and anxieties of the meat, you prolong the respite, and—putting off till to-morrow the slaying of the next four-legged incubus—sacrifice in its stead the noisiest crower, or the most inveterate of the kitchen's feathered intruders. ”

“ Various kinds of grass-seeds, herbs, berries, and roots, are also eaten, both roasted and raw. Wild fowl are caught in nets made of tules, spread over channels cut through the rushes in places frequented by the fowl, at a sufficient height above the water to allow the birds to swim easily beneath them. The game is gently driven or decoyed under the nets, when at a given signal, a great noise is made, and the terrified fowl, rising suddenly, become hopelessly entangled in the meshes, and fall an easy prey. ”

“ Also do thou make of his guts strings for bows and of his gullet a conduit for the terrace-roof and of his skin a tray-cloth and of his plumage cushions and pillows." Now when the Fowl-let heard these words (and he was still in the Fowler's hand) , he laughed a laugh of sorrow and cried, "Woe to thee, O Birder, whither be wended thy wits and thine understanding? Art Jinn-mad or wine-drunken? Art age-foolish or asleep? Art heavy-minded or remiss in thought? ”

“ Whenever a fowl is killed—and I came upon Jack slowly putting one to death the other day with a pair of nail-scissors—he possesses himself of a small store of feathers, which he wears tastefully placed over his left ear. ”

“ In several breeds of the Fowl, the down-covered chickens, the young birds in their first true plumage, and the adults differ greatly from one another, as well as from their common parent-form, the Gallus bankiva; and these characters are faithfully transmitted by each breed to their offspring at the corresponding periods of life. ”

“ God said, that the fowl were to “fly above the earth, in the open firmament of heaven;” but he has made some fowls that are very useful to man, willing to stay upon the earth. If hens and ducks were to lay their eggs in high trees, and among rocks, as many birds do, we should get very few of them; and as they lay many more than they can hatch, it would be a great and wasteful loss. By this we are sure that poultry was intended for our use; and if you take care not to frighten or tease them, you may bring up chickens to be as tame and familiar as dogs or cats. ”

“ The fowls who peck about the kennels, jerking their bodies hither and thither with a gait which none but town fowls are ever seen to adopt, and which any country cock or hen would be puzzled to understand, are perfectly in keeping with the crazy habitations of their owners. Dingy, ill-plumed, drowsy flutterers, sent, like many of the neighbouring children, to get a livelihood in the streets, they hop from stone to stone in forlorn search of some hidden eatable in the mud, and can scarcely raise a crow among them. ”

“ For those who are particular about words, and devote their time to them, miss the things. It is a feat fit for the gardener to pluck without injury the rose that is growing among the thorns; and for the craftsman to find out the pearl buried in the oyster's flesh. And they say that fowls have flesh of the most agreeable quality, when, through not being supplied with abundance of food, they pick their sustenance with difficulty, scraping with their feet. ”

“ The breed of a fowl is judged of by the erectness of the crest, which is sometimes double, its black wings, reddish beak, and toes of unequal number, there being sometimes a fifth placed transversely above the other four. ”