Several ate rose bugs with fatal results; others were greedy as to gravel and agonized with distended crops till released by death.

They had more "sand" than was good for them.

They were raised on "Cat Hill," and five were captured by felines, and when the remnant was brought to me they disappeared day by day in the most puzzling manner until we caught our mischievous pug, "Tiny Tim," holding down a beautiful young Leghorn with his cruel paw and biting a piece out of her neck.
So they left me, one by one, like the illusions of youth, until there was no "survival of the fittest." In a ragged old barn opposite, a hen had stolen her nest and brought out seventeen vigorous chicks.

I paid a large bill for the care of what might have been a splendid collection, and meekly bought that faithful old hen with her large family.

It is now a wonder to me that any chickens arrive at maturity.