The Unlikely Companions of the Dairy Farm

Patrick Doyle has a cow on his dairy farm near this village, whose life is made unbearable by a hen's singular attachment for her. For over a year, the hen has been an inseparable companion of the cow, and spends all of the time, when not on her nest or joining the other chickens when they are fed, perched on the cow's back. There she remains at night, whether the cow may be in the barn, the barnyard, or the pasture. The cow does not approve of this close companionship, and is always trying to shake the hen off her back or whisk her off with her tail. The hen is always prepared for these attempts. And when the cow lowers her head and shakes her shoulders, the hen trots along her back beyond the effects of the shaking. If this fails, she watches the tail closely, and at the first movement that span legs she trots back again to a place of safety between the horns. As the sow will suddenly start on a dead run around a field or the barnyard, lowering her head, lashing her tail and bellowing, as if to terrify the hen into taking her departure. The hen will then ascend to and fro on the cow's back to maintain her position, but the result of this maneuver on the part of the cow is, nine times out of ten, to force its tenacious companion to fly off. The cow is no sooner at rest than she is back, perched. The maneuvers are witnessed almost daily by people who go to the farm for the purpose.