of each day. The hen would nest at a considerable distance from the
feeding ground, sometimes as far as four or five hundred yards away.
After laying an egg she would quit the nest, not walking from it as
other fowls do, but flying, the flight extending to a distance of from
fifteen to about fifty yards; after which, still keeping silence, she
would walk or run, until, arrived at the feeding ground, she would begin
to cackle. At once the cock, if within hearing, would utter a responsive
cackle, whereupon she would run to him and cackle no more. Frequently
the cackling call-note would not be uttered more than two or three
times, sometimes only once, and in a much lower tone than in fowls of
other breeds.

If we may assume that these fowls, in their long, semi-independent
existence in La Plata, have reverted to the original instincts of the
wild Gallus bankiva, we can see here how advantageous the cackling
instinct must be in enabling the hen in dense tropical jungles to rejoin
the flock after laying an egg. If there are egg-eating animals in the
jungle intelligent enough to discover the meaning of such a short,
subdued cackling call, they would still be unable to find the nest by
going back on the bird's scent, since she flies from the nest in the
first place; and the wild bird probably flies further than the creolla
hen of La Plata. The clamorous cackling of our fowls would appear then
to be nothing more than a perversion of a very useful instinct.




CHAPTER VII.

THE MEPHITIC SKUNK.