They are the best of all fowls for a limited space, and not inclined to wander even when they have an extensive run. They cannot fly, and a fence three feet high will keep them in. But if kept in a confined space they must have an unlimited supply of green food. They give us eggs when they are most expensive, and indeed, with regard to new-laid eggs, when they are almost impossible to be had at any price. They begin to lay soon after they are five months old, regardless of the season or weather, and lay throughout the year, except when requiring to sit, which they do twice or thrice a year, and some oftener. Pullets will sometimes lay at fourteen weeks, and want to sit before they are six months old. Cochins have been known to lay twice in a day, but not again on the following day, and the instances are exceptional. Their eggs are of a pale chocolate colour, of excellent flavour, and usually weigh 2-1/4 ounces each. They are excellent sitters and mothers. Pullets will frequently hatch, lay again, and sit with the chickens of the first brood around them. Cochins are most valuable as sitters early in the year, being broody when other fowls are beginning to lay; but unless cooped they are apt to leave their chickens too soon, especially for early broods, and lay again. They are very hardy, and their chickens easy to rear, doing well even in bleak places without any unusual care. But they are backward in fledging, chickens bred from immature fowls being the most backward. Those which are cockerels show their flight feathers earliest. They are very early matured. A writer in the _Poultry Chronicle_ well says: "These fowls were sent to provide food for man; by many they are not thought good table fowls; but when others fail, if you keep them, you shall never want the luxury of a really new-laid egg on your breakfast table. The snow may fall, the frost may be thick on your windows when you first look out on a December morning, but your Cochins will provide you eggs. Your children shall learn gentleness and kindness from them, for they are kind and gentle, and you shall be at peace with your neighbours, for they will not wander nor become depredators. They have fallen in price because they were unnaturally exalted; but their sun is not eclipsed; they have good qualities, and valuable. They shall now be within the reach of all; and will make the delight of many by their domestic habits, which will allow them to be kept where others would be an annoyance." They will let you take them off their roost, handle and examine them, and put them back without struggling.