Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 July 1896 — A Hen's Nest in a W[?]ow. [ARTICLE]

A Hen's Nest in a W[?]ow.

It Is pleasant to think that the lower animals have their Individual traits, not less than men. and cau sometimes be n« “queer” as the queerest of human specimens. Such an Instance of originality Is recorded by the San Francisco Examiner, the subject of the story being a domestic hen, otvued by a Mr. 1-andgrafiT of that city. Some weeks a-go, as It appears, the hen—a fierce and quarrelsome bodyleft the roost provided for her and her associates, and took up her quarters among the branches of a willow lu her master’s back yard. There she soon began getting together materials for a nest, wfilcli she built securely lu the crotch of two branches. After a proper time had elapsed—the family, In the meantime, having observed her strange maudwivers with much l lut#rest—Mr. I-itmlgruff's man climbed Into the tree lu a temporary absence of the hen. Tht'te ht-4he nest were about n dozen chickens. While the man was looking nt them the mother returned, and, as the Examiner says, “made things interesting" for him. In fact site flew about his head so industriously that lu his hurried retreat he toppled over the step ladder and came to the ground with painful suddenness. At last ndvices the mother lieu was still feeding her chicks In. the nest, while the family aud neighbors were waiting to see how she would contrive to get them to the ground when such a proceeding became necessary.