THE CONSCIENCE OF THE BARN-DOOR FOWL
“The trivial round, the common task.”
Few people recognise how strong an element the sense of duty is in the lives of cocks and hens.
I have a Minorca cock of superb appearance and excellent principles. I had to cut his wings once, and I felt as if I had hit a Member of Parliament in the face. It is from him I take my standard.
He receives new hens into his flock with an impressive ceremony. When they are turned into the yard in the approved condition of screaming hysterics, he assembles his old flock about him, and proceeds in a kind of agitated procession towards the newcomers. Then the cock comes a few paces in advance, and with ruffled neck struts and scrapes in front of them. Finally he goes off to the farmyard, the hens following respectfully behind him, the newcomers last of all, pecked and hustled by the rest to make them feel at home.
To his flock of hens the cock stands in much the same position as a hen towards her chickens. It is only the roughness of the instruments they have at hand which misleads us about the particular duty which each is fulfilling.
If a chicken falls on its back it must be remembered that the only instruments by which the hen can help it to regain its feet are a beak and a claw. This is like helping a newborn infant with a sword and a gun. With the full use of ten fingers I feel some anxiety about picking up a chicken. I should quite refuse to do it with a beak and a claw. The hen is braver. She first pecks the chicken to stimulate it to exertion, and then she turns and kicks it. This latter plan is usually the more successful.
But in case of hostilities it must be remembered the hen has only the same two instruments at command. She first pecks her foe and then kicks him. Thus the thoughtless are apt to confound the different intentions in the similarity of method.
In the same way if a hen, called suddenly from an orgie of herring heads in the farmyard to a meal of corn in her own enclosure, forgets where the gate is and tries to get in through the wiring, the cock has only one possible method of helping her. He flies at her from the other side and pecks her. This is not hostile, but protective; he is helping her to recover her self-control. When he has succeeded in reminding her that she cannot hope to get through galvanised wire netting he will accompany her politely round to the gate, and bring her to her food.