Fig. 18. Red Pile Game Bantam cock
Fig. 19. Red Pile Game Bantam hen
How fowls were kept in old times. Less than a century ago it was quite a common practice among the cottagers of England and Scotland to keep their fowls in their cottages at night. Sometimes a loft, to which the birds had access by a ladder outside, was fitted up for them. Sometimes perches for the fowls were put in the living room of the cottage. Such practices seem to us wrong from a sanitary standpoint, but it is only within very recent times that people have given careful attention to sanitation, and in old times, when petty thieving was more common than it is now, there was a decided advantage in having such small domestic animals as poultry and pigs where they could not be disturbed without the owner's knowing it. The practice of keeping fowls in the owner's dwelling seems to have been confined to the poorer people, who had no large domestic animals for which they must provide suitable outbuildings. On large farms special houses were sometimes provided for poultry, but they were probably oftener housed with other animals, for few people thought it worth while to give them special attention.
Fig. 20. White-Faced Black Spanish cockerel. (Photograph from R. A. Rowan, Los Angeles, California)