The domestic cock is the origin of all the varieties of the domestic
fowl, and is supposed to have come originally from Asia. It was brought
to America by the first settlers.
_Miscellaneous Anecdotes._--A short time since, a farmer in Ohio heard
loud talking and angry words among his fowls, and, being a man of
pacific disposition, bent his course towards the scene of cackling and
confusion. Arrived in the vicinity, he observed his favorite cock
engaged in mortal combat with a striped snake, dealing his blows with
bill and spurs in quick succession, and with true pugilistic skill. But
the wily serpent, well aware that, in order to beat his powerful
antagonist, he must use cunning, seized him by the thigh in the rear.
Thus situated, the cock rose on his wings, and lighted on an
apple-tree, the snake keeping fast hold, and dangling down like a
taglock. It then coiled its tail round a branch of the tree. The cock
tried again to escape, but, not being able to disengage himself, hung
with his head down. In this melancholy situation he was found by the
farmer, who instantly killed the snake, and set chanticleer at liberty.
The following is a remarkable instance of the degree to which the
natural apprehension for her brood may be overcome, in the hen, by the
habit of nursing ducks. A hen, who had reared three broods of ducks in
three successive years, became habituated to their taking the water,
and would fly to a large stone in the middle of the pond, and patiently
and quietly watch her brood as they swam about it. The fourth year she
hatched her own eggs, and finding that her chickens did not take to the
water as the ducklings had done, she flew to the stone in the pond, and
called them to her with the utmost eagerness. This recollection of the
habits of her former charge, though it had taken place a year before,
is strongly illustrative of memory in a hen.
"I have just witnessed," says Count de Buffon, "a curious scene. A
sparrow-hawk alighted in a populous court-yard; a young cock, of this
year's hatching, instantly darted at him, and threw him on his back. In
this situation, the hawk, defending himself with his talons and his
bill, intimidated the hens and turkeys, which screamed tumultuously
around him. After having a little recovered himself, he rose and was
taking wing; when the cock rushed upon him a second time, upset him,
and held him down so long, that he was easily caught by a person who
witnessed the conflict."