upon having recently discovered,--a covered
scratching pen strewn with litter to afford exercise for the hens in
rough weather. It will be observed that, so far as ventilation is
concerned, Varro recommends a hen house open to the weather: this is
another standard of modern practice which has had a hard struggle
against prejudice. Columella adds two more interesting bits of advice,
that for the comfort of the hens the roosts should be cut square, and
for cleanliness their water trough should be enclosed leaving
only openings large enough to receive a hen's head. With so much
enlightenment and sanitation one would expect one or the other of
these Romans to tell us of some "teeming hen" like Herrick's who laid
"her egg each day."

We are proud to be able to cite the eminent Roseburg Industrious Biddy
who, in the year of grace 1912, achieved the championship of America
with a record of 266 eggs in ten months and nineteen days, and was
sold for $800: but Varro is content to suggest that a hen will lay
more eggs in a season than she can hatch, and the conservative
Columella (VIII, 5) that the number of eggs depends upon diet.]

[Footnote 183: The guinea fowl got their Greek name, _meleagrides_,
because the story was that the sisters of Meleager were turned into
guinea hens. Pliny (_H.N._ X, 38) says that they fight every year on
Meleager's tomb. It is a fact that they are a pugnacious fowl. Buffon
says that guinea fowl disappeared from Europe in the Dark Ages and
were not known again until the route to the Indies via the Cape of
Good Hope was opened when they were imported anew from the west coast
of Africa.]

[Footnote 184: Reading, "propter fastidium hominum." Cf. Pliny (X, 38),
whose explanation is "propter ingratum virus."]

[Footnote 185: There is a Virginia practice of feeding a fat turkey
heavily on bread soaked in wine or liquor just before he is killed,
the result being that as the turkey gets into that condition which
used to put our ancestors under the table, he relaxes all his tendons
and so is sweeter and more tender when he comes above the table. There
is a humanitarian side to the practice which should recommend it even
to the W.C.T.U. as well as to the epicure.]

[Footnote 186: Many thousands of geese used to be driven every year to
Rome from the land of the Morini in Northern Gaul, but the Germans are
the modern consumers. A British consular report says that in addition
to the domestic supply a specia