Читать книгу Neighbors with Wings and Fins and Some Others, for Young People - James Johonnot - Страница 3
ОглавлениеSCRATCHING FOR A LIVING.
1. It is a bright, sunny morning. Our feathered friends are awake and out. They are talking, laughing, crying, peeping, crowing, clucking, gobbling, and shrieking. They are running, rolling, hopping, flying, strutting, and scratching. They seem to think the whole world belongs to them. They fill the air with their noise. Their many-colored feathers turn and glisten in the mellow sunshine, and the whole farm-yard is alive with their play and work.
2. With the first coming of daylight the hens have dropped from their perch to the floor, and are led forth by the gay paternal cock to enjoy a day's life. A busy crowd are they. When not scratching for food they are laying away a treasure as good as gold. They rest, and roll, but never loaf, or waste time. The hen seems to know that if she would eat she must work. And she sets about her work early, to obtain food for herself and for her children.
3. The hen knows where to seek her bread and meat. Grain and seeds pressed into the earth by the tread of heavy feet are her bread. Her meat has wings and legs. It crawls and digs and burrows in the ground. It is a diet of worms, flies, and beetles. They have a good time during the cool and dark of the night while their enemies are asleep. But when the fingers of the morning begin to touch them they think of the rude, scratching claws that will soon be after them, and they scamper and hide before their eager pursuers.
4. And what about hen's teeth? The hen, and all other scratchers, have teeth, but not in the mouth. Their food is swallowed without chewing, and is at once stored in the crop, where, it remains until it is softened. Then it passes into the gizzard, where it is rubbed and ground between tough, hard ribs, like the grooves of a wash-board. To help in this work, the gizzard is filled with sharp stones and bits or gravel which she has swallowed. These are the hen's teeth, and they work quietly, both while she is gathering food and when she is resting or roosting.
5. So the hen is the princess of scratchers. Her hard, tough claw, with its four toes and four sharp nails, scratches while the sun shines. Her nimble bill catches and bags the running and crawling game which her gizzard, with its strong teeth, chews and grinds at her leisure. While her brood is young and tender she scratches for them, and teaches them how to scratch for themselves.
The Guinea-Fowl.
6. Above all the noises which the scratchers of the farm-yard make, we may hear the harsh and grating voice of the Guinea-fowl. Like some vain beings without feathers, he seems to think that he is greatest who makes the most noise. He is the rattling orator of the farm-yard; and, like many public speakers, he has not sense enough to know when to stop. All the live-long day his clatter, like the sound of a cracked bell, or a squeaking saw, seldom ceases. At times he gets out of patience with his hearers, picking quarrels with turkey, and peacock, and hens, and throwing the whole farm-yard into confusion.
7. The Guinea-fowl is by no means a useless bird. Allured by its beauty and its dark, delicate flesh, the ancients brought it from the coast of Africa. Its very noise and quarrelsome disposition are made use of by poultrymen to protect the rest of the feathered circle against the attacks of hawks. And it is also valued for the richness of its eggs. Some have said that the Guinea-hen is sensitive about the disturbance of her nest; and that she will forsake eggs which human hands have touched.
8. The Guinea is a little smaller than the common hen, but it bears a general family likeness to the turkey. Its neck is long, ending in a queer-looking head, with a top-knot sticking up like the end of one's little finger. As to color, there are pure white Guineas and Guineas of slate-colored feathers, sprinkled over with round, white spots.
9. A long, shrill, unpleasant cry calls our attention to the comb of the barn-roof, where the peacock has passed the night, and is getting ready to come down and swell among the common folks of the yard. Isn't he beautiful? No wonder that he was carried from his home in India as a present to King Solomon. No wonder that Alexander the Great, charmed with his gorgeous feathers, gave strict orders that no harm should be done to him. He knows his own beauty, and for this reason he is very vain. And if any creature has a right to be proud it is the peacock.
10. About the size of the turkey, the form of the peacock is lithe and graceful; and it carries a train longer than his body, covered with gauzy feathers of green, gold, bronze, and blue, all blended into the brightest and richest hues, as he raises and spreads and turns his tail to the sunlight. The eyes in the feathers of this overskirt are like those of the peacock-butterfly, which boys catch with their hats in summer-time. The peacock has been known to live as many as a hundred years.
11. How wide is the difference between the beauty of the peacock and that of his mate, the pea-hen! And why is this so? The beautiful plumage of birds, we must know, is intended both to attract the eye of man and to please the eyes of the birds themselves. Birds win the affections of their companions by their beauty or their song, just as boys and girls gain friends by good and pleasant actions. But the female bird, who must cover her eggs or her young, on the ground or on trees, exposed to many enemies, would only invite and increase danger if she were beautiful. So, like a good and sacrificing mother, she must be sober and plain, for the sake of her children.
