creatures may well be said to have a
language. Though it probably conveys only emotions and not distinct
thoughts, it still must be regarded as a certain kind of speech. The
modes of expression indicate that in this creature, as in the other
feathered forms, the intellectual life consists largely in the
movements inspired by the emotions. On the rational side our fowls seem
weaker than many other less interesting species. In their nesting and
other habits there are no evidences of constructive ingenuity; and in
all my observations on them I have never seen any evidence which showed
either considerable powers of memory or a capacity to act in any
complicated way with reference to an end. It is evident, however, that
they make a very good classification of the world about them. They
have, for the limited field over which they roam, a keen topographic
sense; they never are lost, and this in connection with their
sympathetic homing instinct prevents them from wandering from their
accustomed places to take up again with a wilderness life.

In their adhesion to domestication our common fowls differ in a
remarkable way from all other of our captive animals except the dog, and
these birds are even more ineradicably attached to man than their older
companion. While the dog will sometimes become half wild, or, as we may
phrase it, undomiciled, fowls seem incapable of maintaining themselves
apart from human care. In much ranging of the wilderness I have never
found one of these creatures more than a thousand feet away from a human
habitation. When we consider how common must be the chances of their
going astray, and how easy it is in many parts of the country, as in our
Southern States, for them to obtain in the wilderness food throughout
the year, the fact that they never go wild is indeed remarkable. It can
only be explained by the great development of the homing instinct which
man has brought about in their sympathetic souls.

[Illustration: Houdin, Cochins, Leghorns, and Game]

Although our unnatural process of breeding has done much to degrade the
original beauty of the cocks and hens, destroying the delicate
coloration of the feathers as well as the admirable blending and
contrasts of their pristine hues, it seems likely that the effect on the
physical and mental development as a whole has not been unfavorable.
Though less courageous, they are stronger creatures than in their wild
state; they are clearly more fecund; they