Cut or hack it as you will, it will never die till
sunset. This idea has evidently its source in the amazing vitality
common to the species.
_Poultry._--The crowing of a hen bodes evil, and is frequently followed
by the death of some member of the family. When, therefore, Dame Partlet
thus experiments upon the note of her mate, she pays her head as the
price of her temerity, a complete severance of the offending member
being supposed to be the only way of averting the threatened calamity.
No house, it is said, can thrive whose hens are addicted to this kind of
amusement. Hence the old proverb often quoted in this district:
"A whistling woman and a crowing hen,
Is neither fit for God nor men."
According to Pluquet, the Normans have a similar belief, and a saying
singularly like the English one:
"Un Poule qui chante le coq, et une fille qui siffle, portent
malheur dans la maison."
Before the death of a farmer his poultry frequently go to roost at
noon-day, instead of at the usual time. When the cock struts up to the
door and sounds his clarion on the threshold, the housewife is warned
that she may soon expect a stranger. In what is technically termed
"setting a hen," care is taken that the nest be composed of an odd
number of eggs. If even, the chickens would not prosper.
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