Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 33.djvu/647

Rh the latter began his usual tactics of worrying his enemy, taking precious care of himself all the time. He was never fond of hard hitting, but trusted mainly to trickery. The big Cochin would stretch his neck up, now and then,manual correction? [sic] and thunder out a ponderous challenge, and every time the agile Leghorn made a quick rush, sometimes going six feet, and knocked the helpless Asiatic nearly or quite off his feet before he could stop crowing or lower his head. When the victim recovered, his foe was invariably out of reach. At last the white rooster was given a taste of his own clever tactics. He had been crowing freely with impunity all the time, but suddenly, as he began another shrill taunt, he was startled by a rush like his own and knocked over before he could get into position for defense. After that the Cochin never missed a chance to use this artifice in fighting, with other cocks as well as the white Leghorn. He had acquired skill as truly as any general ever did.

An amusing test of the difference of disposition in barnyard fowls may be made by placing a piece of looking-glass against the trunk of a large tree, and laying a train of corn in front of it. Some hens will discover what they all take for a new arrival with mild curiosity and merely look at it intently, perhaps peering around behind the tree, and then walk quietly away. Others peck the glass angrily and insist upon fighting, while a few nervous females show much the same noisy excitement that seizes upon most hens when they spy a snake. We tried the valiant old autocrat of the farm-yard with this trick, and he was at once roused to fury. Dropping his head when some ten feet in front of the glass, he began the cautious advance by parallels, which every one familiar with poultry has seen before a fight. But, of course, he soon lost his enemy by moving too far to one side. After crowing fiercely and looking around uneasily for a few moments, he returned to the train of corn, and almost instantly saw the strange cock nearer than before. More stealthy approach, another failure to keep sight of the foe, and greater excitement, and a third time he began to eat, only to be startled by the hostile presence nearer than ever. At last he worked right up to the glass and braced himself for the shock of combat, the counterfeit, of course, following his every movement with ominous celerity. There was one fierce peck at the angry head in the glass, and then a crash, as our infuriated champion hurled himself against his likeness, breaking the glass into a hundred fragments. The mingling of astonishment, rage, and triumph in this bird's appearance, as he whirled about, startled at the cracking noise, and bewildered by the total disappearance of his enemy, was comical to behold. Then he rushed around behind the big pear-tree, evidently thinking that the cowardly stranger might be