Why is it that hens always want to roost over the cows and horses in the winter time? Perhaps they want company in the long, lonesome nights, but probably it is because the cattle generate a certain amount of warmth that makes the beams above them pleasanter roosting places than the hen-house. Anyway there is always a week or two at the beginning of each winter when a bunch of ambitious hens must be trained to roost in their own quarters instead of in the stable. Every night at milking time I shoo them out until they finally get it into their heads they are not wanted. But they are almost as hard to convince as the New England farmer who went to a dance to which he had not been invited. He overlooked the lack of invitation, and was even willing to overlook the fact that he was told that he was not wanted, but when he was finally thrown outdoors and kicked through the front gate, "He took the hint and went away." After being thrown out of the stalls about a dozen times the hens finally took the hint, and they now stay in their own quarters. But just as I got rid of the hens the guinea fowl decided that the weather was getting altogether too severe for outdoor life. All summer and fall they have been living in the fields, and any one who happened to see them reported the fact much as if they had seen a flock of quail. They really seem more like wild than domesticated fowl, and if they live entirely on insects and weed seeds they must have a distinct value in keeping pests of various kinds in check. But when the cold weather came on they began attending the chicken feedings, not only at home but at neighbouring farms. They seem to have good ears as well as wonderful appetites, for whenever they hear other fowls squabbling over their feed they take to their wings and never touch the earth until they light right in the middle of the banquet. And they never miss a feeding time at home either. They should be fat enough for the table before long.

But what I started to tell about is the persistence the guinea fowl show in adopting the stable as a home. On the first cold night I found the whole twenty of them ranged decoratively on the partitions between the stalls. I couldn't shoo them away like the hens. I had to touch each one, and as I touched it it gave a shrill squeak and flew blindly until it brought up against the wall at the far end of the stable. Usually they fell to the floor, but sometimes they would beat their wings and work their feet and apparently walk up the wall like flies until the roof checked them, and then they would sink to the floor with a final discouraged squeak. Once I caught one of them to see how heavy it was, and it squealed like a rat. I dropped it instinctively, for I felt that anything that could squeal like that would be likely to bite. And they can bite—or at least use their bills. I have noticed that at feeding time they can whip even the rooster away from the choicest bits, and I am told that when there were young chickens about, the old pair of guinea fowl thought nothing of grabbing them in their beaks and shaking them as a terrier shakes a rat. Sometimes, if they were not interrupted in committing these atrocities they even killed the chickens. I do not think the nature and habits of guinea fowl have been studied by the experts, and some time when the rush is over I may prepare a bulletin on the subject. At present, however, I am chiefly interested in making them understand that they are not wanted in the stable at night. But it seems hard to convince them. Every night I find them in exactly the same position as on the first night, and every evening I startle twenty squeaks out of the flock before I get them to move elsewhere. It is getting to be a regular chore.

But it is as fabricators of new and fiendish noises that the guinea fowl are in a class by themselves. They are at it all the time. The mildest noise they make reminds you of the filing of a saw with a bungling mechanic dragging the file on the back stroke. The noises they make when they set to work to show what they can do are beyond description. I have heard noises something like them in sawmills when the circular saw happened to strike a sliver. And they are ready to give an impromptu serenade at any time. I used to think that the ducks were the noisiest thing about the barnyard, but they only squawk when I am trying to talk. The guinea fowl keep at it when I am trying to think so that I cannot bear the thoughts that are trying to whisper their way into my brain. They rasp out wild noises when they are eating and when they are fasting, when they are walking and when they are flying; and their idea of a nice, quiet time seems to be to lie down in some spot where they are sheltered from the wind by a clump of weeds or something of the sort, and try to outdo each other in the range and volume of their cries. When we start eating these guinea fowl I am going to dissect one to find out what its vocal cords are made of. I don't think they could possibly make such noises without metal contrivances of some kind that can be rasped together and banged and thumped on. Perhaps I'll discover a new metal that would be valuable in making phonographs, and be able to organise a company to mine it out of the guinea fowl. Then I'll sell stock to the farmers. Judging by their noises there are great and unknown possibilities in these creatures. And yet I have heard people say they rather liked having them around because they keep up such a constant clatter that they keep one from getting lonesome. It strikes me that the person who would not rather be alone than have a flock of guinea fowl for company must have a bad conscience.