Once More With Footnotes

…
     
                  Peck peck.
                  Scratch. Scratch.
                  Cluck?
     
                  …
     
                  It is a matter of record that, after a while, those who regularly drove this route noticed that the chickens had survived. There were, and indeed still are, sprinklers on the verge to keep the greenery alive and presumably the meagre population of bugs was supplemented by edible fallout from the constant stream of traffic.
     
                  The chickens seemed to be settling in. The y were breeding.
     
                  …
     
                  Peck peck. Scratch. Peck ... Peck?
     
                  Scratch peck? Peck?
     
                  Peck + peck = squawk Cluck?
     
                  …
     
                  A rough census indicated that the population stabilised at around fifty birds. For the first few years young chickens would frequently be fo und laminated to the blacktop, but some sort of natural selection appeared to be operating, or, if we may put it another way, flat hens don't lay eggs.
     
                  Passing motorists did occasionally notice a few birds standing at the kerb, staring intently at the fa r verge.
     
                  They looked like birds with a problem, they said.
     
                  …
     
                  SQUAWK PECK PECK CROW!
     
    I               Peck squawk peck
    II                           Squawk crow peck
    III                        Squawk squawk crow
    IV                        Scratch crow peck waark
    V                           (Neck stretch) peck crow
    VI               Peck peck peck (preen feathers)
    VII                           (Peck foot) scratch c row
    VIII                        Crow scratch
    IX                         Peck (weird gurgling noise) peck
    X                            Scratch peck crow waark (to keep it holy).
     
                  In fact, apart from the occasional chick or young bird, no chicken was found dead on the freeway itself apart from the incident in 1976, when ten chickens wer e seen to set out from the kerb together during the rush hour peak. This must have represented a sizeable proportion of the chicken population at that time.
     
                  The driver of a gas tanker said that at the head of the little group was an elderly cockerel, who stared at him with supreme self-confidence, apparently waiting for something to happen.
     
                  Examination of the tanker's front offside wing suggests that the bird was a Rhode Island Red.
     
                  …
     
                  Cogito ergo cluck.
     
                  …
     
                  Periodically an itinerant, or the just p lain desperate, would dodge the traffic to the verge and liberate a sleeping chicken for supper.
     
                  This originally caused some concern to the Department of Health, who reasoned that the feral chickens, living as they did so close to the traffic, would have built up dangerously high levels of lead in their bodies, not to mention other noxious substances.
     
                  In 1978, a couple of research officers were sent into the thickets to bring back a few birds for a sacrifice to Science.
     
                  The birds' bodies were found to be totally lead-free.
     
                  We do not know whether they checked any eggs.
     
                  This is important (see Document C).
     
                  They did remark incidentally, however, that the birds appeared to have been fighting amongst themselves. (See Document F: Patterns of Aggression in Enclosed Environments, Helorksson and Frim, 1981.) We must assume, in view of later developments, that this phase passed.
     
                  …
     
                  Four peck-(neck stretch) and seven cluck-scratch ago, our crow-(peck left foot)-squawk brought forth upon this cluck-cluck-sq uawk ...
     
                  …
     
                  In the early hours of 10 March