Number One is "Bobby, an excellent Biddy. Lays nice, large eggs, and brings up her families well."
Number Two, named Queen Mab. Always crows to the music of a sweet-voiced Steinway. Is in all other respects an amiable and exemplary hen.
Number Three is a black hen, now three years old. Has laid eggs.
Number Four crowed regularly every morning, when the cock did. When she was a little over a year old, she and her seven babes were stolen from a wild cherry-tree, where they went to bed, by a fox, who came up on an old log.
Number Five crowed irregularly. Raised several broods of chicks. Lived to be four or five years old.
Number Six crowed chiefly in the fall, when the young chicks were practising (no doubt to encourage them). Lived to the remarkable age of nine years, and was then decapitated.
Number Seven raised a large brood of chickens. Their papa was killed at about the time for them to begin to crow, and one morning she flew up on the fence and crowed with all her might. Continued it until they had learned, and stopped. Was called Old Sam. Her end was the soup-pot.
Number Eight, an old speckled hen. Took to crowing after a raid on the poultry-yard had deprived it of every rooster. Crowed as well as anybody.
Number Nine lived twenty-five years ago. Witness has forgotten whether she ever did anything but crow. Had a wicked name, which I shall not give.
Number Ten laid eggs.