See PHASIANUS, ORNITHOLOGY Index. Guinea-HEN. See NUMIDA, ORNITHOLOGY Index. HEN-Bane. See HYOSCYAMUS, BOTANY and MATERIA MEDICA Index.

HEN-Harrier. See FALCO, ORNITHOLOGY Index.

HEN-Mould Soil, in Agriculture, a term used by the husbandmen in Northamptonshire, and other counties, to express a black, hollow, spongy, and mouldering earth, usually found at the bottom of hills. It is an earth much fitter for grazing than for corn, because it will never settle close enough to the grain to keep it sufficiently steady while it is growing up, without which, the farmers observe, it either does not grow well; or, if it seem to thrive, as it will in some years, the growth is rank, and yields much straw, but little car. It is too moitl, and to that is principally to be attributed this rankness of the crop in some years; and the occasion of its retaining so much moisture is, that it usually has a bed of stiff clay, which will not let the water run off into the under strata.

In some places they also give this name to a black, rich, and dense earth, with streaks of a whitish mould in many parts. This sort of hen-mould is usually found very rich and fertile.