in ornithology, a genus belonging to the order of gallinæ. The cheeks are covered with a smooth naked skin. There are six species, viz.

1. The gallus, or common dunghill cock and hen, with a compressed caruncle or fleshy comb on the top of the head, and a couple of caruncles or wattles under the chin. The ears are naked, and the tail is compressed and erected. Of all other birds, perhaps this species affords the greatest number of varieties; there being scarce two to be found that exactly resemble each other in plumage and form. The tail, which makes such a beautiful figure in the generality of these birds, is yet found entirely wanting in others; and not only the tail, but the rump also. The toes, which are usually four in all animals of the poultry kind, yet in a species of the cock are found to amount to five. The feathers, which lie so sleek and in such beautiful order in most of those we are acquainted with, are in a peculiar breed all inverted, and stand staring the wrong way. Nay, there is a species that comes from Japan, which instead of feathers seems to be covered over with hair.

It is not well ascertained when the cock was first made domestic in Europe; but it is generally agreed that we first had him in our western world from the kingdom of Persia. Aristophanes calls the cock the Persian bird; and tells us he enjoyed that kingdom before some of its earliest monarchs. This animal was in fact known so early even in the most savage parts of Europe, that we are told the cock was one of the forbidden foods among the ancient Britons. Indeed, the domestic fowl seems to have banished the wild one. Persia itself, that first introduced it to our acquaintance, seems no longer to know it in its natural form; and if we did not find it wild in some of the woods of India, as well as those of the islands in the Indian ocean, we might begin to doubt, as we do with regard to the sheep, in what form it first existed in a state of nature. But the cock is still found in the islands of Tinian, in many others of the Indian ocean, and in the woods on the coast of Malabar, in his ancient state of independence. In his wild condition, his plumage is black and yellow, and his comb and wattles yellow and purple. There is another peculiarity also in those of the Indian woods; their bones, which, when boiled, with us are white, as every body knows, in those are as black as ebony.

In their first propagation in Europe, there were distinctions then that now subsist no longer. The ancients esteemed those fowls whose plumage was reddish as invaluable; but as for the white, it was considered as utterly unfit for domestic purposes. These they regarded as subject to become a prey to rapacious birds; and Aristotle thinks them less fruitful than the former. Indeed, his division of those birds seems taken from their culinary uses: the one sort he calls generous and noble, being remarkable for fecundity; the other sort, ignoble and useless, from their sterility. These distinctions differ widely from our modern notions of generosity in this animal; that which we call the game-cock being by no means so fruitful as the ungenerous dunghill cock, which we treat with contempt. The Athenians had their cock-matches as well as we; but it is probable they did not enter into our refinement of choosing out the most barren of the species for the purposes of combat.

However this be, no animal in the world has greater courage than the cock when opposed to one of his own species; and in every part of the world where refinement and polished manners have not entirely taken place, cock-fighting is a principal diversion. In China, India, the Philippine islands, and all over the East, cock-fighting is the sport and amusement even of kings and princes. With us it is declining every day; and it is to be hoped it will in time become only the pastime of the lowest vulgar. See the article Cock-Fighting.

The cock claps his wings before he sings or crows. His fight is very piercing; and he never fails to cry in a peculiar manner, when he discovers any bird of prey in the air. His extraordinary courage is thought to proceed from his being the most falacious of all other birds whatsoever. A single cock suffices for ten or a dozen hens; and it is said of him that he is the only animal whose spirits are not abated by indulgence. But then he soon grows old; the radical moisture is exhausted; and in three or four years he becomes utterly unfit for the purposes of impregnation. "Hens also, (to use the words of Willoughby,) as they for the greatest part of the year daily lay eggs, cannot suffice for so many births, but for the most part after three years become effete and barren; for when they have exhausted all their feed-eggs, of which they had but a certain quantity from the beginning, they must necessarily cease to lay, there being no new ones generated within."

The hen seldom clutches a brood of chickens above once a season, though instances have been known in which they produced two. The number of eggs a domestic hen will lay in the year are above 200, provided she be well fed and supplied with water and liberty. It matters not much whether she be trodden by the cock or no; she will continue to lay, although the eggs of this kind can never by hatching be brought to produce a living animal. Her nest is made without any care, if left to herself; a hole scratched into the ground, among a few bushes, is the only preparation she makes for this season of patient expectation. Nature, almost exhausted by its own fecundity, seems to inform her of the proper time for hatching, which she herself testifies by a clucking note, and by discontinuing to lay. The good housewives, who often get more by their hens laying than by their chickens, often artificially protract this clucking season, and sometimes entirely remove it. As soon as a hen begins to cluck, they flint her in her provisions; which, if that fails, they plunge her into cold water; this, for the time, effectually puts back her hatching; but then it often kills the poor bird, who takes cold and dies under the operation.

If left entirely to herself, the hen would seldom lay above 20 eggs in the same nest, without attempting to hatch. Phasianus hatch them; but in proportion as she lays, her eggs are removed; and she continues to lay, vainly hoping to increase the number. In the wild state, the hen seldom lays above 15 eggs; but then her provision is more difficultly obtained, and she is perhaps sensible of the difficulty of maintaining too numerous a family.

When the hen begins to sit, nothing can exceed her perseverance and patience: she continues for some days immovable; and when forced away by the importunities of hunger, she quickly returns. Sometimes also her eggs become too hot for her to bear, especially if she be furnished with too warm a nest within doors, for then she is obliged to leave them to cool a little: thus the warmth of the nest only retards incubation, and often puts the brood a day or two back in the shell. While the hen sits, she carefully turns her eggs, and even removes them to different situations; till at length, in about three weeks, the young brood begin to give signs of a desire to burst their confinement. When by the repeated efforts of their bill, which serves like a pioneer on this occasion, they have broke themselves a passage through the shell, the hen still continues to sit till all are excluded. The strongest and best chickens generally are the first candidates for liberty; the weakest come behind, and some even die in the shell. When all are produced, she then leads them forth to provide for themselves. Her affection and her pride seem then to alter her very nature, and correct her imperfections. No longer voracious or cowardly, she abstains from all food that her young can swallow, and flies boldly at every creature that she thinks is likely to do them mischief. Whatever the invading animal be, she boldly attacks him; the horse, the hog, or the mastiff. When marching at the head of her little troop, she acts the commander; and has a variety of notes to call her numerous train to their food, or to warn them of approaching danger. Upon one of these occasions, the whole brood have been seen to run for security into the thickest part of an hedge, while the hen herself ventured boldly forth, and faced a fox that came for plunder.

Ten or twelve chickens are the greatest number that a good hen can rear and clutch at a time; but as this bears no proportion to the number of her eggs, schemes have been imagined to clutch all the eggs of an hen, and thus turn her produce to the greatest advantage. By these contrivances it has been obtained, that a hen that ordinarily produces but 12 chickens in the year, is found to produce as many chickens as eggs, and consequently often above 200. This contrivance is the artificial method of Hatching chickens in stoves, as is practised at Grand Cairo; or in a chemical laboratory properly graduated, as has been effected by Mr Reaumur. At Grand Cairo, they thus produce 6000 or 7000 chickens at a time; where, as they are brought forth in their mild spring, which is warmer than our summer, the young ones thrive without clutching. But it is otherwise in our colder and unequal climate; the little animal may without much difficulty be hatched from the shell, but they almost all perish when excluded. To remedy this, Reaumur has made use of a woollen hen, as he calls it; which was nothing more than putting the young ones in a warm basket, and clapping over them a thick woollen canopy.

Capons may very easily be taught to clutch a fresh brood of chickens throughout the year; so that when one little colony is thus reared, another may be brought to succeed it. Nothing is more common than to see capons thus employed; and the manner of teaching them is this: First the capon is made very tame, so as to feed from one's hand; then, about evening, they pluck the feathers off his breast, and rub the bare skin with nettles; they then put the chickens to him, which presently run under his breast and belly, and probably rubbing his bare skin gently with their heads, allay the stinging pain which the nettles had just produced. This is repeated for two or three nights, till the animal takes an affection to the chickens that have thus given him relief, and continues to give them the protection they seek for: perhaps also the querulous voice of the chickens may be pleasant to him in misery, and invite him to succour the distressed. He from that time brings up a brood of chickens like a hen, clutching them, feeding them, clucking, and performing all the functions of the tenderest parent. A capon once accustomed to this service, will not give over; but when one brood is grown up, he may have another nearly hatched put under him, which he will treat with the same tenderness he did the former.

The cock, from his falacioufnels, is allowed to be a short-lived animal; but how long these birds live, if left to themselves, is not yet well ascertained by any historian. As they are kept only for profit, and in a few years become unfit for generation, there are few that, from mere motives of curiosity, will make the tedious experiment of maintaining a proper number till they die. Aldrovandus hints their age to be 10 years; and it is probable that this may be its extent. They are subject to some disorders; and as for poisons, besides nux vomica, which is fatal to most animals except man, they are injured, as Linnæus asserts, by elderberries; of which they are not a little fond.

2. The motmot, or Guinea pheasant, is brownish, somewhat red below, with a wedge-like tail, and wants spurs. 3. The colchicus is red, with a blue head, a wedge-shaped tail, and papillous cheeks. It is a native of Africa and Asia. 4. The argus is yellowish, with black spots, a red face, and a blue crest on the back part of the head. It is found in Chinese Tartary. 5. The pictus has a yellow crest, a red breast, and a wedge-shaped tail. It is a native of China. 6. The nechemerus is white, with a black crest and belly, and a wedge-shaped tail. It is a native of China.

Pheasants were originally brought into Europe from the banks of the Phasis, a river of Colchis, in Asia Minor; and from whence they still retain their name. Next to the peacock, they are the most beautiful of birds, as well for the vivid colour of their plumes as for their happy mixtures and variety. It is far beyond the power of the pencil to draw anything so glossy, so bright, or points so finely blending into each other. We are told, that when Croesus, king of Lydia, was seated on his throne, adorned with royal magnificence and all the barbarous pomp of eastern splendour, he asked Solon if he had ever beheld any thing to fine? The Greek philosopher, no way moved by the objects before him, or taking a pride in his native simplicity, replied, That after having seen the beautiful plumage of the pheasant, he could be astonished at no other finery. These birds, tho' so beautiful to the eye, are not less delicate when served up to the table. Their flesh is considered as the greatest dainty; and when the old physicians spoke of the wholesomeness of any viands, they made their comparison with the flesh of the pheasant. However, notwithstanding all these perfections to tempt the curiosity or the palate, the pheasant has multiplied in its wild state.

A spirit of independence seems to attend the pheasant even in captivity. In the woods, the hen-pheasant lays from 18 to 20 eggs in a season; but in a domestic state, she seldom lays above 10. In the same manner, when wild, the hatches and leads up her brood with patience, vigilance, and courage; but when kept tame, she never sits well, so that a hen is generally her substitute upon such occasions: and as for leading her young to their food, she is utterly ignorant of where it is to be found; and the young birds starve, if left solely to her protection. The pheasant, therefore, on every account, seems better left at large in the woods than reclaimed to pristine captivity. Its fecundity when wild is sufficient to stock the forest; its beautiful plumage adorns it; and its flesh retains a higher flavour from its unlimited freedom.

However, it has been the aim of late to take these birds once more from the woods, and to keep them in places fitted for their reception. Like all others of the poultry kind, they have no great sagacity, and suffer themselves easily to be taken. At night they roost upon the highest trees of the wood; and by day they come down into the lower brakes and bushes, where their food is chiefly found. They generally make a kind of flapping noise when they are with the females; and this often apprises the sportsman of their retreats. At other times he tracks them in the snow, and frequently takes them in springes. But of all birds they are shot most easily; as they always make a whirring noise when they rise, by which they alarm the gunner, and being a large mark, and flying very slow, there is scarce any missing them.

When these birds are taken young into keeping, they become as familiar as chickens; and when they are designed for breeding, they are put together in a yard, five hens to a cock; for this bird, like all of the poultry kind, is very falacious. In her natural state the female makes her nest of dry grass and leaves; the same must be laid for her in the pheasantry, and she herself will sometimes properly dispose them. If she refuses to hatch her eggs, then a common hen must be got to supply her place, which task she will perform with perseverance and success. The young ones are very difficult to be reared; and they must be supplied with ants-eggs, which is the food the old one leads them to gather when wild in the woods. To make these go farther, they are to be chopped up with curds or other meat; and the young ones are to be fed with great exactness, both as to the quantity and the time of their supply. This food is sometimes also to be varied; and wood-lice, ear-wigs, and other insects, are to make a variety. The place where they are reared must be kept extremely clean; their water must be changed twice or thrice a-day; they must not be exposed till the dew is off the ground in the morning, and they should always be taken in before sun-set. When they become adult, they very well can shift for themselves, but they are particularly fond of oats and Phasianus barley.

In order to increase the breed, and make it still more valuable, Longolius teaches us a method that appears very peculiar. The pheasant is a very bold bird when first brought into the yard among other poultry, not sparing the peacock, nor even such young cocks and hens as it can master; but after a time it will live tamely among them, and will at last be brought to couple with a common hen. The breed thus produced take much stronger after the pheasant than the hen; and in a few successions, if they be let to breed with the cock-pheasant, for the mixture is not barren, there will be produced a species more tame, stronger, and more prolific; so that he adds, that it is strange why most of our pheasandries are not stocked with birds produced in this manner.

The pheasant, when full grown, seems to feed indifferently upon every thing that offers. It is said by a French writer, that one of the king's sportsmen shooting at a parcel of crows that were gathered round a dead carcase, to his great surprise upon coming up, found that he had killed as many pheasants as crows. It is even asserted by some, that such is the carnivorous disposition of this bird, that when several of them are put together in the same yard, if one of them happens to fall sick, or seems to be pining, that all the rest will fall upon, kill, and devour it. Such is the language of books; those who have frequent opportunities of examining the manners of the bird itself, know what credit ought to be given to such an account.