WHY THE HEN CACKLES.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 17701, 1 March 1923, Page 11

WHY THE HEN CACKLES.

The accepted explanation of the cackling in which a hen indulges after laying an egg is that she is so pleased that she wants everyone to know it. The rooster answers the cackle with a crow, and this is taken as further indir cation that both are immensely proud' of the achievement.j This explanation is not tenable (soya the "Pall Mall Gazette"). If the question is considerfairly it is very easy to see that instinct would teach the ben that to cackle is to call the attention of the enemy to both herself and her embrvo offspring, , which she would naturally avoid doing. The cackle is a relio of long bygone days when fowls were not d'omesticated and ran about wild, when tbe hen wished to lay she retired from the rest of tbe fowl community and performed thri task. By the time she was ready to rejoin, the commonwealth the ibther members had wandered some dis. tance, and she did not know where they were. She waited till she had gone some distance from the egg, in order not to endanger it, and them she cackled, after also having taken a good look round to assure herself that no enemies were near. The rooster, hearing the cackle, answered it by a crow, and thus informed the hen of the whereabouts of the tribe. This sort of thing may be seen now among the ancestors of our domestic fowl in the Malay countries and India.