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Robert Christy, comp. Proverbs, Maxims and Phrases of All Ages. 1887.

Chicken

A capon eight months old is fit for a king’s table.Spanish, Portuguese.

A cock is crouse on his own midden.

A cock is valiant on his own dunghill.Dutch, Portuguese, French, German.

A good cock was never fat.Portuguese.

A large cock does not suffer a small one to crow.Yoruba.

A laying hen is better than a standing mill.Scotch.

A setting hen never grows fat.

All cocks must have a comb.Dutch.

Black hens lay white eggs.Dutch.

Even clever hens sometimes lay their eggs among nettles.Danish.

Every cock scratches toward himself.

Every hen knows how to tread on her own chickens.West Indian.

Fat hens lay few eggs.German.

He who feeds the hen ought to have the egg.Danish.

Hens are free of horse corn.Dutch.

Hens like to lay where they see an egg.Dutch.

If the hen had not cackled, we should not know she had laid an egg.Italian.

In cold weather cocks crow at midnight.Chinese.

It is a bad hen that eats at your house and lays at another’s.Spanish.

It is a sairy hen that cannot scrape for one bird.

It is not easy to guard the hen that lays her eggs abroad.Danish.

It is not the hen that cackles most that lays the most eggs.

Knowing hens lay even in nettles.German.

Large fowls will not eat small grain.Chinese.

Let the hen live though it be with the pip.Don Quixote.

Prepare a nest for the hen and she will lay eggs for you.Portuguese.

She holds up her head like a hen drinking water.

The chicken gives advice to the hen.

The chicken is the country’s but the city eats it.

The cock often crows without a victory.Danish.

The cock shuts his eyes when he crows because he knows it by heart.German.

The cock that sings untimely must have its head cut off.Turkish.

The hen flies not far unless the cock flies with her.Danish.

The hen is ill off when the egg teaches her how to cackle.

The hen lays upon an egg.Spanish.

The hen likes to lay in a nest where there are eggs already.German.

The hen lives by pickings as the lion by prey.Danish.

The hen ought not to cackle in presence of the cock.French.

The hen sits if it be but one egg.Don Quixote.

The hen that stays at home picks up the crumbs.

The hen’s eyes are with her chickens.French.

The hen’s eyes follow her eggs.Galician.

The scraping hen will get something, the crouching hen nothing.

To force a hen to hatch chickens.Chinese.

To get the chicks, one must coax the hen.French.

Where the cock is the hen does not crow.Portuguese.

You are as busy as a hen with one chick.

Young cocks love no cooks.