The Author gets a breed of poultry, and by what means--
Builds them a house--How he managed to keep them in winter
One day, as I was traversing the woods to view my bird-traps, looking
into the underwood among the great trees on my right hand, I saw a
wood-hen (a bird I used to call so, from its resemblance in make to our
English poultry) come out of a little thicket. I know not whether my
rustling or what had disturbed it; but I let her pass, and she ran away
before me. When she was fairly out of sight, I stepped up, and found
she had a nest and sixteen eggs there. I exactly marked the place, and
taking away one of the eggs, I broke it, at some distance from the nest,
to see how forward they were; and I had no sooner broke the shell but
out came a young chicken. I then looked into the nest again, and taking
up more of the eggs, I found them all just splintered in the shell, and
ready for hatching. I had immediately a desire to save them, and bring
them up tame; but I was afraid if I took them away before they were
hatched, and a little strengthened under the hen, they would all die; so
I let them remain till next day. In the meanwhile I prepared some small
netting of such a proper size as I conceived would do, and with this
I contrived, by fastening it to stakes which I fixed in the ground,
to surround the nest, and me on the outside of it. All the while I was
doing this, the hen did not stir, so that I thought she had either been
absent when I came, or had hatched and gone off with the young ones. As
to her being gone I was under no concern; for I had no design to
catch her, but only to confine the chickens within my net if they were
hatched. But, however, I went nearer, and peeping in, found she sat
still, squeezing herself as flat to the ground as she could. I was in
twenty minds whether to take her first, and then catch the chickens, or
to let her go off, and then clap upon them; but as I proposed to let her
go, I thought if she would sit still till I had got the chickens, that
would be the best way; so I softly kneeled down before her, and sliding
my hand under her, I gently drew out two, and put them in a bag I had in
my left hand. I then dipped again and again, taking two every turn; but
going a fourth time, as I was bringing out my prize, the hen jumped up,
flew out, and made such a noise that, though I the minute before saw six
or seven more chicks in a lump where she had sat, and kept my eye upon
them, yet before I could put the last two I had got into my bag, these
were all gone, and in three hours' search I could not find one of them,
though I was sure they could not pass my net, and must be within the
compass of a small room, my toils enclosing no more. After tiring myself
with looking for them, I marched home with those eight I had got.
I told Youwarkee what I had done, and how I intended to manage the
little brood, and, if I could, to bring them up tame. We kept them some
days very warm by the fire, and fed them often, as I had seen my mother
do with her early chickens; and in a fortnight's time they were as stout
and familiar as common poultry. We kept them a long while in the house;
and when I fed them I always used them to a particular whistle, which
I also taught my wife, that they might know both us and their
feeding-time; and in a very short while they would come running, upon
the usual sound, like barn-door fowls to the name of Biddy.
There happened in this brood to be five hens and three cocks; and they
were now so tame that, having cut their wings, I let them out, when the
weather favoured, at my door, where they would pick about in the wood,
and get the best part of their subsistence; and having used them to
roost in a corner of my ante-chamber, they all came in very regularly
at night and took their places. My hens, at the usual season, laid me
abundance of eggs, and hatched me a brood or two each of chickens; so
that now I was at a loss to know what to do with them, they were become
so numerous. The ante-chamber was no longer a proper receptacle of such
a flock, and therefore I built a little house, at a small distance from
my own, on purpose for their reception and entertainment. I had by this
time cleared a spot of ground on one side of my grotto, by burning up
the timber and underwood which had covered it: this I enclosed, and
within that enclosure I raised my aviary, and my poultry thrived very
well there, seemed to like their habitation, and grew very fat.
My wife and I took much delight in visiting and feeding them, and it was
a fine diversion also to my boys; but at the end of summer, when all
the other birds took their annual flight, away went every one of my
new-raised brood with them, and one of my old cocks, the rest of the old
set remaining very quiet with me all the winter. The next summer, when
my chicks of that year grew up a little, I cut their wings, and by that
means preserved all but one, which I suppose was either not cut so close
as the rest, or his wings had grown again. From this time I found, by
long experience, that not two out of a hundred that had once wintered
with me would ever go away, though I did not cut their wings; but all of
the same season would certainly go off with the wild ones, if they could
any ways make a shift to fly. I afterwards got a breed of blacknecks,
which was a name I gave them from the peculiar blackness of their necks,
let the rest of their bodies be of what colour they would, as they
are, indeed, of all colours. These birds were as big, or bigger, than a
turkey, of a delicious flavour, and were bred from turkey eggs hatched
under my own wood-hens in great plenty. I was forced to clip these as
I did the other young fowl, to keep them, and at length they grew very
tame, and would return every night during the dark season. The greatest
difficulty now was to get meat for all these animals in the winter, when
they would sit on the roost two days together if I did not call and feed
them, which I was sometimes forced to do by lamp-light, or they would
have starved in cloudy weather. But I overcame that want of food by an
accidental discovery; for I observed my blacknecks in the woods jump
many times together at a sort of little round heads, or pods, very dry,
which hung plentifully upon a shrub that grew in great abundance there.
I cut several of these heads, and carrying them home with me, broke
them, and took out a spoonful or more from each head of small yellow
seeds, which giving to my poultry, and finding they greedily devoured
them, I soon laid in a stock for twice my number of mouths, so that they
never after wanted. I tried several times to raise a breed of water-fowl
by hatching their eggs under my hens; but not one in ten of the sorts,
when hatched, were fit to eat; and those that were would never live
and thrive with me, but go away to the lake, I having no sort of water
nearer me; so I dropped my design of water-fowl as impracticable. But by
breeding and feeding my land-fowl so constantly in my farmyard, I never
wanted of that sort at my table, where we eat abundance of them; for my
whole side of the lake in a few years was like a farmyard, so full of
poultry that I never knew my stock; and upon the usual whistle they
would flock round me from all quarters. I had everything now but cattle,
not only for the support, but convenience and pleasure of life; and so
happily should I have fared here, if I had had but a cow and bull, a ram
and sheep, that I would not have changed my dominions for the crown of
England.