PKiEOXS AXD ALL ABOUT THEM. 63 



SHIFTING EGGS AND YOUNG. 



AITER marking the date of the laying of a pair of eggs, 

 look at them carefully the sixth day afterwards. Hold 

 them in front of your lamp, or take them to the suu 

 arid note their appearance. If they look clear and yellow, 

 they are infertile and will not hatch, but if they are inclined 

 to be opaque or if you can see little veins, they are all right. 



Right here I want to give some advice that it will be well 

 to heed. 1 have spent years " helping" birds and I find the 

 following the best plan, especially with young birds. I want 

 to preface this by the statement, that a young pair of mated 

 birds are much like a young pair of house keepers; they 

 have lots to learn. 



If I find that a young pair have one fertile egg, I put away 

 the other and let them go on with one. If both are infertile 

 I get one egg from another pair, mark it plainly with the 

 pencil, make a pencil mem. in the loft register, and let them 

 hatch it. It is a wonderful helper in " steadying" a young 

 pair, for the care of feeding after the long rest of hatching, 

 takes a great deal of the crankiness from them, and they 

 settle down. 



On the other hand, if you take the eggs away, it unsettles 

 them, aud they are apt to rush to laying again, and the sec- 

 ond pair of eggs, (from the fact that the parents have had no 

 real rest,) are apt to be bad. When this youngster so hatch- 

 ed is banded, I credit it to the pair that laid the egg, so it 

 will be seen that there is no chance for any mistake. 



Here comes the beauty of mating all the birds on the same 

 day, for, if a pair has both young die in coming out of the 

 shell, or just after, there are always other nests out of which 

 young can be borrowed, 



