362 ALBERT C. EYCLESHVMER. 



owing to the fact that this is the position in which least resistance 

 is met ; a second factor is that of specific gravity. The air 

 space naturally tends to become uppermost and as this increases 

 in size, the center of gravity becomes lower and lower, and the 

 number of eggs assuming oblique positions increases as incubation 

 progresses. It must, however, be kept in mind that an egg 

 under natural conditions, does not maintain a position such that 

 its angle is constant, and it may be that this varying angle of 

 inclination influences development. 



Experiments. - - In order to ascertain what influence the position 

 of the egg during artificial incubation has upon development, the 

 following experiments were made : 



In one tray of twelve-row capacity, the eggs were arranged in 

 the following manner : Six rows were filled with eggs placed in 

 such a position that their long axes were in a horizontal plane. 

 Each row contained eight eggs, there being thus forty-eight eggs 

 lying flat. In the remaining six rows the eggs were placed in 

 such a position that their long axes coincided with an angle of 

 45. Each of these rows contained ten eggs, giving sixty eggs 

 placed obliquely. That the value of the results might not be 

 lessened through the introduction of bad lots of eggs, they were 

 controlled by taking equal numbers of these eggs from three 

 different flocks of fowls and evenly distributing them throughout 

 the tray. 



On the fifth day thirteen infertile eggs were removed from 

 those placed obliquely, leaving forty-seven living embryos. 

 These eggs were again examined on the sixteenth day, and five 

 dead embryos were found, leaving forty-two chicks alive at this 

 time. Forty chicks hatched ; the remaining two died after hav- 

 ing pipped ; the percentage of hatched chicks from the fertile 

 eggs being 85.0. 



From the forty-eight eggs lying flat, ten infertile eggs were 

 removed on the fifth day, leaving thirty-eight live embryos. The 

 sixteenth day, nine dead embryos were removed, leaving twenty- 

 nine living chicks ; of these eighteen hatched ; three died after 

 having pipped, and the remainder died in the shell. . The per- 

 centage of chicks hatched from the fertile eggs was 47.3. 



It is, of course, perfectly obvious that in this experiment, the 



