Mrs. Hen does not have the ear-splitting voice of Mr. Cock, but she has a language of her own. There are only a few words in it but each of them has a meaning. There is the proud cackle with which she tells the world that she has laid an egg, the lively chuckle with which she brings her brood to a feast of worms, and the quick cry of danger which sets them running to the fortress of her wings. Her brood know what all these chickenwords mean, and it is for their ears they are spoken.
The hen is not as handsome a bird as some other inmates of the poultry yard, but if we look over all our stock of these birds we will find some very good-looking ones, these for their showy colors, those for their fine shape.
Among those that are kept more for ornament than use are the great Cochin China fowls, stately birds, giants of their kind, of lordly bearing and fine coloring. They do not lay many eggs and those they do lay are small. Also they are not very good to eat. But they win respect through their size and beauty and thus are kept by many as birds of show.
Another family of giant fowls are the Brahmas. They are smaller than the Cochin Chinas, but are as handsome, and along with this they lay many and large eggs and their flesh is very good. So these are kept not only as birds of show but birds of use.
When we come down to hens of smaller size we find a number of breeds, not less than forty in all, dwelling in various parts of the world and many of than good in various ways. Like nearly all our home animals, America is not the native place of the hen. Neither is Europe, for it came from Asia, that great continent in which so many animals were first born. But the hen tribe has spread all over the earth, the chicken is a household treasure almost from the north pole to the south, and we can hardly find a country home in any land without its crowing cock and its clucking hen.
While not native to America, it makes itself very much at home there and the United States has some excellent breeds of its own, of which we may be proud. These are the Plymouth Rocks and the Wyandottes, which have been called the national fowls of America and which can hold their own with the best breeds of Europe. While we have brought a number of fine breeds from foreign lands, we have sent these two abroad, and they have won high praise both for beauty and usefulness.
The Wyandottes are of various colors, the white being best liked; others are of silver, golden, speckled, black, and partridge-color. They are splendid egg layers, filling the yearly basket with from a hundred and fifty to two hundred eggs.
The Plymouth Rock may be speckled, light yellow, or white, and it bears a strong resemblance to the Wyandotte, except that the latter has a double comb on its head while the former has a single one.
As the cow is kept for its meat and its milk, and the sheep for its meat and its wool, so is the hen kept for two purposes, its flesh and its eggs. Some kinds are bred for the table and they are of great value in our food-supply. Everybody likes a dish of chicken meat, which is fine in flavor, easy of digestion, and very good for the weak or sick.
Other kinds are kept for egg-laying and the egg-harvest of the world is vast in size. It is the nature of the hen to lay eggs enough for a brood of chicks, sit on them to keep them warm, and take care of the brood when it appears until the chicks are old enough to scratch for their own living.