As to the eggs, I am sure the birds will go on laying one a day for ’tis their nature to.  Whether the product of the intelligent, conscious, logical fowl, will be as rich in quality as that of the uneducated and barbaric bird, I cannot say; but it ought at least to be equal to the Denmark egg eaten now by all Londoners; and if, perchance, left uneaten, it is certain to be a very superior wife and mother.

While we are discussing the subject of educating poultry, I confess that the case of Cannibal Ann gives me much anxiety.  Twice in her short career has she been under suspicion of eating her own eggs, but Phoebe has never succeeded in catching her in flagrante delicto.  That eminent detective service was reserved for me, and I have been haunted by the picture ever since.  It is an awful sight to witness a hen gulp her own newly-laid fresh egg, yolk, white, shell, and all; to realise that you have fed, sheltered, chased, and occasionally run in, a being possessed of no moral sense, a being likely to set a bad example, inculcate vicious habits among her innocent sisters, and lower the standard of an entire poultry-yard. The Young Poultry Keeper’s Friend gives us no advice on this topic, and we do not know whether to treat Cannibal Ann as the victim of a disease, or as a confirmed criminal; whether to administer remedies or cut her off in the flower of her youth.

We have had a sad scene to-night.  A chick has been ailing all day, and when we shut up the brood we found him dead in a corner.

Phoebe put him on the ground while she busied herself about the coop.  The other chicks came out and walked about the dead one again and again, eyeing him curiously.

“Poor little chap!” said Phoebe. “’E’s never ’ad a mother!  ’E was an incubytor chicken, and wherever I took ’im ’e was picked at.  There was somethink wrong with ’im; ’e never was a fyvorite!”

I put the fluffy body into a hole in the turf, and strewed a handful of grass over him.  “Sad little epitaph!” I thought.  “He never was a fyvorite!”

CHAPTER VIII

July 13th.

I like to watch the Belgian hares eating their trifolium or pea-pods or grass; graceful, gentle things they are, crowding about Mr. Heaven, and standing prettily, not greedily, on their hind legs, to reach for the clover, their delicate nostrils and whiskers all a-quiver with excitement.

As I look out of my window in the dusk I can see one of the mothers galloping across the enclosure, the soft white lining of her tail acting as a beacon-light to the eight infant hares following her, a quaint procession of eight white spots in it glancing line.  In the darkest night those baby creatures could follow their mother through grass or hedge or thicket, and she would need no warning note to show them where to flee in case of danger.  “All you have to do is to follow the white night-light that I keep