The Lake Charles Echo

May 3, 1879

“A Boy-Rooster.”

The strangest freak of nature on record has just come to light in the shape of a “boy-rooster.”

The parents of the strange malformation, now about six years old, from mortification, kept its existence a profound secret except in a few instances where near relatives were permitted to see it, until recently when it was taken to St. Louis to see if the learned doctors could account for its strange deformity, but they could not. This strange creature was born or hatched about ten miles from Vicksburg, in Mississippi.

The head and feet of this strange creature is as perfect a chicken as was ever hatched, while its hands and body is that of a perfect human, except that its hands are as large as those of a man. It has beak, comb and gills like a chicken, and its neck from its head to its shoulders is covered with beautiful red feathers tinged with gold, and it crows and talks alternately.

It has the intellect of the human, but when it comes to its food it will eat nothing except such food as fowls feed upon, and is extremely fond of bugs and worms, which it catches out in the yard, and says they are perfectly splendid. It is a great cross to its mother to see it out in the yard catching worms. The name of the father of this boy-rooster is Rathbone.

This is certainly the most wonderful child that the world has ever seen. Barnum would doubtless give a half million dollars for it, but its parents say that they cannot afford to make money out of the misfortunes of their offspring, and will not even exhibit it for pay.

“Historic Cryptid Headlines” showcases actual articles involving cryptids that were published within United States newspapers back in the 1800s-1900s. The articles posted here are written exactly as they appeared during their original publishing date.

-The Pine Barrens Institute

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