Such an amusement is infinitely superior to feats of conjuring and legerdemain, tricks with cards, and impositions of various kinds, which are put in some books for the amusement of young people, and which are highly pernicious both to their mental and moral progress. PART IX. KEEPING POULTRY. Keeping poultry is an innocent amusement both for boys and girls. Domesticated animals, unlike the free inhabitants of the country, do not suffer from the loss of liberty, and when they are well housed, fed, and attended to, they are as happy in their state of domestication as they would be in their wild state of liberty; perhaps, more so, and therefore it is quite right to keep them. There is something very pleasant in watching the old hen as she sits so patiently on her nest, and to see the little birds issue from the eggs, with the proud but careful mother strutting by them, and scratching and toiling to obtain them food; and nothing is more touching to a sensitive mind than to behold her at the least chill of air, or overcasting of the clouds, calling her young brood under her wings for warmth, shelter, and security. There are many lessons of good to be learned in fowl-keeping. In proceeding to keep poultry, the young poultry-keeper should first secure a proper place to keep them in. He ought to be able to build, if not the whole, a great portion of his poultry-house, which need not be on a very extensive plan; but there are a certain number of little requisites belonging to it which ought not to be forgotten. [Illustration] NATURE AND SITUATION OF FOWL-HOUSE. [Illustration: SIDE VIEW.] The situation of a fowl-house should be such as to afford sun and warmth in winter and spring, and shade in summer. It should be well covered in at the top, free from damp, have good ventilation and light, with windows of lattice-work, with boards behind to open and shut. It should be placed against a wall with a slanting roof. The side should contain one latticed window (A); the front, also, a latticed window (B), with a hatch-door, partly latticed and partly boarded at the side. A little door for the fowls should communicate with a fowl-yard, as seen below. [Illustration: FRONT VIEW.]