"I have a gentil cock, Crowyt me day. He doth me rysyn erly, My matyins for to say. His legges ben of asor, So geintil and so smale. His spores arn of sylver qwyt, In to the wortėwale. His eynyn arn of cristal, Lokyn al in aumbyr, And every nyght he perchit hym In myn ladyis chaumbyr."

"Thither the houshold feathery people crowd, The crested cock, with all his female train."

"It may be the cock that crows, but it is the hen that lays the eggs."

"Jack, how agrees the devil and thee about thy soul, that thou soldest him on Good Friday last for a cup of Madeira and a cold capon’s leg?"

"Fair round belly with good capon lined."

"Nort had chickens, I had cocks, Gamesome cocks, loud-crowing cocks."

"Then there are those proverbial “bird brains” of the barnyard, chickens, surely the most maligned and abused animal on the face of the earth, and—just as surely—among the brightest, most social birds we'll find anywhere. ... Chickens not only are capable of learning, they are also capable of teaching one another. It turns out that chickens are not as dumb as popular mythology makes them out to be."

"But when the long hours of Public are past And we meet with Champaign and a Chicken at last, May every fond Pleasure that hour endear."

"The lovers come near and far, And envy the chicken That Peggy is pickin’, As she sits in the low-backed car."

"The domesticated chicken is the most widespread fowl ever."

"They are very frightening for me because their stupidity is so flat. You look into the eyes of a chicken and you lose yourself in a completely flat, frightening stupidity. They are like a great metaphor for me... I kind of love chicken, but they frighten me more than any other animal."

"Along with its aggressive streak, the Chicken also seemed to have an appetite for play. Was it pure coincidence that she liked to sneak up on Yowzer, the cat most likely to develop a nervous twitch when caught unawares? Time after time I saw the Chicken trot up delicately when Yowzer had his back turned, squawk a couple of times, and then watch as the cat leaped a couple of vertical feet. The Chicken, after a successful ambush, would run off jauntily, with a cackle that sounded suspiciously like a chuckle."

"Chickens may be capable of affection or loyalty or maybe even pride, but if so, they feel these feelings in an ancient and birdlike way, like glassy-eyed visitors from another world."

"Plover, partridge, for your dinner, And a capon for the sinner."

"For Pigeons' flesh he seems not much to care; Cram'd Chickens are a more delicious fare."

": Thou shalt eat no fantastical porridge, Nor lick the dish where oil was yesterday, Dust, and dead flies to-day; capons, fat capons— : Oh, hearty sound! : Cramm'd full of itching oysters."

"When the chicklet crieth in the egg-shell, Thou givest him breath therein, to preserve him alive. When thou hast perfected him That he may pierce the egg, He cometh forth from the egg, To chirp with all his might; He runneth about upon his two feet, When he hath come forth therefrom."

"鹅鹅鹅，曲项向天歌。白毛浮绿水，红掌拨清波。"

"GOOSE, n. A bird that supplies quills for writing. These, by some occult process of nature, are penetrated and suffused with various degrees of the bird's intellectual energies and emotional character, so that when inked and drawn mechanically across paper by a person called an "author," there results a very fair and accurate transcript of the fowl's thought and feeling. The difference in geese, as discovered by this ingenious method, is considerable: many are found to have only trivial and insignificant powers, but some are seen to be very great geese indeed."

"I dare not hope to please a Cinna's ear. Or sing what Varus might vouchsafe to hear; Harsh are the sweetest lays that I can bring, So screams a goose where swans melodious sing."

"“That’s The Goose,” he said. The way he said it, I could hear the capitals. I stared at it. It looked like any other goose, fat, self-satisfied and short-tempered."

"Idem Accio quod Titio jus esto."

"As wild geese that the creeping fowler eye, Or russet-pated choughs, many in sort, Rising and cawing at the gun's report, Sever themselves, and madly sweep the sky."

"Shall I, like Curtius, desperate in my zeal, O'er head and ears plunge for the common weal? Or rob Rome's ancient geese of all their glories, And cackling save the monarchies of Tories?"

"A fox should not be of the jury at a goose's trial."

"Mankind naturally and generally love to be flatter'd: Whatever sooths our Pride, and tends to exalt our Species above the rest of the Creation, we are pleas'd with and easily believe, when ungrateful Truths shall be with the utmost Indignation rejected. "What! bring ourselves down to an Equality with the Beasts of the Field! with the meanest part of the Creation! 'Tis insufferable!" But, (to use a Piece of common Sense) our Geese are but Geese tho' we may think 'em Swans; and Truth will be Truth tho' it sometimes prove mortifying and distasteful."

"All furnish'd, all in arms; All plum'd, like estridges that with the wind Baited, like eagles having lately bath'd."

"Like the ostrich, head under wing When the roaring storm breaks, So many people take refuge Under the soft pillow Of specious arguments."

"Prince Edward all in gold, as he great Jove had been, The Mountfords all in plumes, like estridges were seen."

"The ostrich [with] her eggs on the hillside. She receives those eggs as something to carry: the bird knows how to keep watch at night."

"Rahel could see it coursing through his veins, as clearly as an egg travelling down an ostrich's neck."

"The cuckoo builds not for himself."

"... On several occasions I have seen a cuckoo mobbed by small birds, and it would be pleasant to think it was done as a protest on the part of decent bird-society against a disgusting anti-social parasite. But the probability is that they mistake the cuckoo for a hawk."

"The Attic warbler pours her throat Responsive to the cuckoo's note."

"And now I hear its voice again, And still its message is of peace, It sings of love that will not cease, For me it never sings in vain."

"O blithe New-comer! I have heard, I hear thee and rejoice; O Cuckoo! shall I call thee Bird, Or but a wandering Voice?"

"List—'twas the cuckoo—O, with what delight Heard I that voice! and catch it now, though faint, Far off and faint, and melting into air, Yet not to be mistaken. Hark again! Those louder cries give notice that the bird, Although invisible as Echo's self, Is wheeling hitherward."

"While I deduce, From the first note the hollow cuckoo sings, The symphony of spring."

"Oh, could I fly, I'd fly with thee! We'd make, with joyful wing, Our annual visit o'er the globe, Companions of the spring."

"The merry cuckow, messenger of Spring, His trumpet shrill hath thrice already sounded."

"The cuckoo then on every tree, Mocks married men; for thus sings he, Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Cuckoo! O word of fear, Unpleasing to a married ear."

"And being fed by us you used us so As that ungentle gull, the cuckoo's bird, Useth the sparrow."

"Sweet bird! thy bower is ever green, Thy sky is ever clear; Thou hast no sorrow in thy song, No winter in thy year."

"The birds can fly, an' why can't I? Must we give in," says he with a grin, "That the bluebird an' phœbe are smarter 'n we be?"

"Out of the fragrant heart of bloom, The bobolinks are singing; Out of the fragrant heart of bloom The apple-tree whispers to the room, "Why art thou but a nest of gloom While the bobolinks are singing?""

"The crack-brained bobolink courts his crazy mate, Poised on a bulrush tipsy with his weight."

"When Nature had made all her birds, With no more cares to think on, She gave a rippling laugh and out There flew a Bobolinkon."

"One day in the bluest of summer weather, Sketching under a whispering oak, I heard five bobolinks laughing together, Over some ornithological joke."

"Robert of Lincoln is gayly drest, Wearing a bright black wedding-coat; White are his shoulders and white his crest."