Yankee phrase, to skedaddle and make tracks for a place of security and shelter, leaving his hens to their fate. Our bill of indictment contra gallum, the reader may say, is a heavy one, but it is in the main very true, as any one who chooses may satisfy himself when he has the opportunity. How, then, do we account for it? Well, it is very difficult satisfactorily to account for it in any way. We are inclined to the belief that the demoralisation of our domestic cock is to be traced to the introduction into our country of such splay-footed, loutish, awkward fowls as the "Cochin China," "Bramahpootra" et hoc omne genus, whose brains seem to have subsided into the feathers on their feet, and whose only good quality is their size, and even that is dearly purchased, we suspect, when the immense feeding they require is taken into account. These fowls have spread everywhere, so that, except in some out-of-the-way localities, a cock or hen of the old native breed, of blood pure and uncontaminated by foreign intermixture, is very rarely to be met with, while cross-breeds and mongrels of every shape and size are abundant in all directions. Whatever the good qualities of these latter in other respects, courage, gallantry, and pluck are not of the number. Just inquire into the subject for yourself, good reader, and you will find that, neither physically, intellectually, nor morally is the cock of the present day to be compared for a moment with the gallant, handsome, proud-stepping biped of your boyhood. CHAPTER XXIX. The Vernal Equinox--Beauty of Loch Leven--Astronomical Notes--How an old Woman supposed to possess the Evil Eye escaped a cruel death.