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.
It might possibly give the reader some faint conception of the odious
character of this creature (for adjectives are weak to describo it) when
I say that, in talking to strangers from abroad, I have never thought it
necessary to speak of sunstroke, jaguars, or the assassin's knife, but
have never omitted to warn them of the skunk, minutely describing its
habits and personal appearance.
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