According to the Pall Mall Gazette, which relies on the
French journal Le Malin, a Montpellier doctor has been making experi- ments on the alcoholisation of fowls with this result; —that the creatures take as eagerly to brandy, wine, and absinthe as the most intemperate of our own race; that the strongest of the absinthe.. drinkers died in two months, the strongest of the brandy-drinkers in four months, and of the wine-drinkers in ten months ; and that the habit of intoxication, besides causing them to lose flesh rapidly, singularly-heightened the colour of the combs and crests of the cocks. If the story be true, it will explode at once the old superstition that birds will be so sure to refuse at once unwholesome food, that, in a new country for example, their habits are a guide to what is eatable for man. The experiment, if justifiable at all, seems somewhat cruel ; but what a pity that we cannot have the psychological as well as the physical results of this experiment on bird-topers ! The suspicions of a cock in delirium tremens, the remorse of a sitting hen that had taken too much to keep steady on the eggs, would be worth recording. But we hope the practice of tempting even poultry to drink themselves to death is not likely to spread.
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