The Author gets a breed of poultry, and by what means— Builds them a house—How he managed to keep them in winter

O ne 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.